Many Happy Returns
by Laura Picken
Summary: A Vodun case attracts the attention of the Guardians just as the group is preparing for the upcoming wedding of Fallon and Katya. Will the couple make it to their 'happily ever after? Part of the "Guardians of Shangri La" AU.
1. Chapter 1

Many Happy Returns  
a Castle fantasy fan fiction  
by Laura Picken

This is story is in my continuing *very* alternate universe of the Guardians of Shangri La. If you have no idea what that means, go to my author page and look up the "Four Winds" series. I promise, you will have a *incredibly* hard time following this story if you haven't read at least one of those stories.

STORY DISCLAIMER (aka fair warning): I have some purely selfish motives when it comes to this story. For several months now I have been wanting to turn the origin story of the Guardians into an original novel, but I've had a massive case of writer's block. In particular, I want that story to focus on one central character, but I'm having trouble fully developing her back-story. So there will be a solid chunk of this story devoted to working on her. I *promise* to write enough Castle Guardian-y goodness to keep you guys very happy, but I *need* to start developing this character more, and I'm writing this story to force myself to do that. So please, I'm asking in advance for *no* "why are you focusing so much on her?" comments. Feel free to pick her apart every which way you can think of (I *adore* questions and constructive criticism, as some of you know), but she *will* be the primary driving force for this story. If that doesn't float your boat, I apologize in advance. Please feel free to look elsewhere.

DISCLAIMER: Castle, Beckett, et al. are property of Andrew W. Marlowe and ABC. The legends and related legendary characters described herein are (mostly) adaptations of my own twisted imagination and should not be taken to reflect the traditions of any particular group. In the ever-expanding universe of these stories we've had a couple of crossovers to this point, so there may be occasional references to the Avengers (Marvel comics) or characters from the old TV show "The Sentinel" (Pet Fly Productions). All non-English language phrases are courtesy of Google Translate, so please forgive me if I get anything unintentionally wrong.

Okay, enough business, let the adventure begin!

#

_New York can be such a dull place, sometimes..._

He walked into the center of Times Square and stood still, letting the busyness of the crowd and the energy from the bright lights of the neon and LCD signs wash over him like a lukewarm shower. It wasn't enough. It was never going to *be* enough.

Things used to be so much easier. Even in his great-grandfather's day the people of this city used to pulse with an energy, a vibrancy...a life-force that fueled New York City like nothing else in the world. That was why New York was considered the greatest city in the world. Why people were drawn to Ellis Island like moths to a flame. It was what drew his family to emigrate to America along with all the others.

And yet, over time, the exchange began. As the lights grew brighter and the energy of the city was amped up through television and technology...human energy was dissipated in return. "Auras used to be bright enough to light my way at night," his grandfather had told him. Nowadays he could barely see auras in the brightest of daylight...if he could even see them at all.

It was depressing.

So there he was, looking to feed off the energy from the Coca-Cola sign and the ABC News Ticker tape. He hated it. He hated every second of it. But what could he do?

It was then that he noticed it: just barely, out of the slightest corner of his eye. Light. Real, honest to goodness, true light. It seemed like it was no bigger than a pinprick at first, but it shimmered with such a radiant purity that he couldn't help but follow it. He turned toward the light, desperate to find the source of what he had been looking for for so long. _There, over by the theater door...my God, it's so beautiful..._

He watched a couple as they left one of the Broadway theaters, completely fascinated by the sight in front of him. The man's aura was the source of the light he had seen: pure, clean and bright like the shimmering of a pond at sunset. The woman, though...the woman's aura was starting to fascinate him even more than the man's. Where his was light and radiance, hers...hers was the black of darkest night. And its pull...it was like her aura called to him. It begged him to go to her; begged him to crawl into her darkness and never come out. _This requires further investigation..._

He followed the couple west as they headed away from the bright lights of Times Square. The interplay of the couple's auras was fascinating to him: it was as if light and shadow were dancing around each other in an intimate tango. The couple were walking arm-in-arm, laughing and joking playfully about the show they had just seen. The man stumbled; it was clear he had consumed large quantities of alcohol throughout the evening. The woman pulled the man into an alley and kissed him fiercely. The man kissed the woman back with equal passion; she squealed and giggled as they pushed each other back and forth between the two buildings, causing some of the bricks to crack and crumble around them.

The couple came up for air for only a minute. It was long enough to give their observer pause to wonder if he needed to leave. Those thoughts were quickly replaced, however, when he watched the dim light from the window above the couple revealed that the woman had...fangs. Sharp, animal-looking fangs. She used those fangs to bite into the neck of her boyfriend; the gesture shocked their observer at first, but that shock was changed to curiosity as he watched the woman drink from the wound and the man close his eyes, reveling in the ecstatic pleasure of the moment. _A vampire? Here? Living amongst humans? _His mind was reeling with the possibilities of what that could mean for him and his future.

_Yes indeed, this definitely requires further investigation..._

#

**_Two weeks later..._**

Kevin Ryan studied his wife's face for what must have been the fifteenth time that morning. "Jen?" When he got no response, he tried again. "Jen?"

Jenny never quite looked up from doing the dishes, clearly *very* preoccupied. "Hmmm?"

When Alexis started fussing in her high chair, Ryan used his telekinetic gift to pull a few dozen Cheerios out of the box and scatter them on the tray; this caused the toddler to squeal with delight. He then turned his attention back to his wife. "Jen? What's wrong?"

The momentary distraction once again caused Jenny's focus to shift away from their conversation. "Hmmm?"

Ryan eyed Jenny warily; the concern on his face was obvious. "What's going on?"

In the short time it took Ryan to ask the question, Jenny's focus had wavered once again. "Oh? Oh, sorry, honey...just got a thousand thoughts running through my head, is all."

"A thousand thoughts..." mused Ryan, trying and failing to try to piece together what was going on. "Jen, honey, you know I try not to be in your head without your permission, but unless you can explain to me why you've been so all over the place the past couple of weeks..." When Kevin discovered that he had lost his wife's attention for a third time, he could no longer allow himself to remain polite. He connected with his wife's mind with a frustrated sigh, reaching deep to try and discover the source of the thoughts that were so distracting to her...

The couple recoiled simultaneously from the mental contact, husband and wife both holding their ears to try and soothe the pain. "What the hell was that?!" Jenny exclaimed.

Ryan, for his part, was still trying to shake the ringing out of his ears. "I don't know..." he gasped. His mind reached out for the only connection he could think of that could possibly bring answers. _Lanie?_

Lanie had to stop herself from dropping the coffee pot as Ryan's mind-voice called out to her. The fear in his voice was obvious. _Ryan? What is it? What's going on?_

_Something...happened just now between me and Jenny,_ Ryan replied. _How fast can you get over here?_

_We're on our way, _said Lanie.

#

By the time Lanie arrived ten minutes later, Ryan was a bit of a panic, which started to worry Lanie all the more. "Kev? Baby, what's going on?"

Ryan stepped to the side to allow Lanie and Esposito to enter the apartment. "It's Jenny. Something...something's happening between us. And I just can't figure it out."

Lanie entered the living room to find Jenny sitting on the couch, her expression matching the fear that Lanie had seen on her husband's face when she walked into the apartment. "What happened?"

"I haven't been able to focus much lately," Jenny replied. "My mind's been wandering so much I can't keep a conversation with anyone that has an attention span longer than Alexis'. And then this morning..."

"I tried to read her mind," Ryan added, picking up on his wife's narrative, "but this time...instead of hearing her thoughts, all I heard was this really loud whistle..."

"Whistle?" asked Esposito.

Ryan nodded. "It was this awful, really loud screeching noise. It was deafening."

"And how long did it last?" asked Lanie.

"Until I broke the connection," Ryan replied.

Lanie tried to process the information she had gotten to that point, and realized quickly that she needed more. "Okay," she declared, "exam time. Kevin, you first."

Ryan held out his hand, and Lanie took it, mentally sweeping through his body to see how her friend was doing. "You're fine, Kev. Nothing's physically wrong with you."

"Nothing?" asked Ryan, clearly confused by the diagnosis.

Lanie shook her head, then turned to Jenny. "Your turn, hon." She took Jenny's hand and closed her eyes. The examination started out normal...but when Lanie's eyes started to twitch rapidly, Ryan connected with his partner's mind and gave her the focus to finish the exam. Once Lanie's eyes opened, they quickly widened in amazement as the pieces of the puzzle fit together in her mind. "Same poles of a magnet..." she gasped.

Esposito picked up on the reference immediately. "Like what happened with me and the Prophet?"

Lanie nodded, then turned her attention back to Jenny, whose nerves were starting to amp up exponentially. "Lanie?" she asked, her voice shaking badly, "what is it? Is something wrong with me? Did I...did I flip or something?"

"No, sweetie," Lanie replied, squeezing her friend's hand, "You didn't flip." Her gaze went between both Kevin and Jenny to make sure both of them had her complete attention. Lanie then broke out into a wide, joyful smile. "Jenny, honey...you're not the one hearing all those thoughts. Your baby is."

"I...I'm *pregnant*?" Jenny gasped out in amazement.

Lanie nodded. "You're not very far along, but I think the thoughts that have been going through your head aren't your thoughts. I think they're the thoughts of people around you in the building."

"You mean...?" asked Ryan.

"I think so, too," said Esposito, making the connection that his wife (and probably his partner) had already made. "My future niece or nephew to be has your gift, bro. And because your kid has it, for now...so does Jenny."

#

_Katya withered under her father's lack of attention. She could stare down a snow leopard without fear, argue with her mother from sunrise to sunset, and fight off all of her brothers at once...but one meeting with her father could wound her spirit like nothing else ever could. "I hear you fought and killed a snow leopard today, child," her father said coolly, his eyes never leaving the roaring hearthfire he was lounging beside._

_"Yes, father," Katya agreed, hoping for at least a small gesture of approval._

_She was destined to be disappointed. "You endangered a horse by fighting that beast, child, and that is something I cannot abide. Your riding privileges are suspended through the remaining moon cycle. You will be confined to camp to during that time unless I or another elder send for you."_

_Katya's heart sank, knowing that meant going almost a full month without the only activity that gave her any joy. She took a step forward, opening her mouth to argue her case...then closed it quickly, years of beatings reminding her that any protestations would only serve to make the punishment *far* worse. "Yes, father," she finally relented._

_Her father's only acknowledgement of her acceptance was a curt not. "While you are in camp, child," he continued, "you will be working as a tent servant."_

_Katya swallowed hard, not liking one bit where her father's train of thought was headed. "Tent servant?" she repeated, looking for clarification._

_It was only then that Katya noticed there was a stranger sitting in the chair next to her father. "We have a guest, child. He is going east and has asked to rest with us through this moon cycle. Your mother has informed me that you need lessons in how to take care of a man if we are to have any hope of finding a husband for you. Therefore, I am assigning you to be our guest's tent servant while he is with us."_

_Katya pulled her hands behind her back to keep her father from knowing that they were shaking. "Yes, father," she consented, her trembling lower lip the only indicator of her growing fear and despair._

_The stranger got up from the chair to examine Katya, and it was only then that Katya was given the opportunity to examine *him* for the first time. He was like no one she had ever seen before in her young life: startlingly pale, with a face and hands so delicate that he reminded her more of one of her childhood dolls than she did of any other man she had ever met. It was his eyes, though, that she found most captivating. They were dark; almost *too* dark, as if the part of his eye that should have been brown was swallowed up by the blackness in the center. Someone who wasn't paying attention too closely, Katya reasoned, might not have noticed. They would have been far more likely to be entranced by his exotically beautiful features or his exceedingly confident, assured demeanor._

_Katya, though, noticed. Even though she wished, more than anything, that she hadn't..._

Katya woke with a start, gasping for air that she didn't need and grateful that she, for once, hadn't awakened her fiancé. Slipping quietly out of the bed that they shared, she left the bedroom...resisting the urge to run her fingers through his hair or trace the outline of the bite marks that had yet to heal at the base of his neck. Closing the door behind her with a soft click, Katya then opened her living room blinds, trying to get a handle on what time it was. The mid-afternoon sun streaming through the window gave her her answer: it wasn't 2 am, it was 2 *pm*. "Why can Mark not get used to the 24-hour clock," she grumbled, "it would make my life so much easier..."

Her next stop was the kitchen, opening the refrigerator to see what her 'late-night' snacking options were. Seeing the bottle of cow's blood and the leftovers of a bag of AB-negative from the night before sent her 'dream' rushing back to the forefront of her mind.

It wasn't a *dream*, she knew with absolute certainty as she poured the cow's blood into a coffee cup and put it in the microwave to warm it. Katya had been 'dreaming' about her human life: memories that she was re-living in her sleep with startling clarity. It had been *centuries* since she had thought about her human life or the family of her youth. She had believed those memories to be so far in her past that they were no longer relevant. She wasn't even sure she *could* remember those times with any accuracy...even if she wanted to. And yet she winced as she sat down, her muscles screaming in protest over a day's ride on a horse that had been dead for over four hundred years.

What in the world was going on?

#

**As always, folks, comments highly encouraged! C'mon, lemme have it...**


	2. Chapter 2

_It feels so strange to be back..._

Dr. Sidney Perlmutter stood patiently in the elevator of the New York City Medical Examiner's office, waiting as the elevator traveled down to his old basement 'stomping grounds'. A flash of the 'old Perlmutter' went through his mind just before the doors opened to the windowless, flourescent-lit corridor. How cynical he had been. Closed-minded. Anti-social.

The times certainly were a-changin'.

Walking down the hallway to his old morgue was starting to feel a little like walking the hallways of your old elementary school as an adult: you remember everything as being big, important and larger-than-life; but when you grow up, that same school starts to feel old...and small...

He passed though the swinging doors, momentarily surprised to see no one in the room...except for the single body on the slab. Figuring the ME was either in the office taking a call or in the bathroom, he prepared himself to wait patiently by deliberately turning *away* from the body that had been left open mid-autopsy. _Old habits die hard, I guess..._

Perlmutter didn't have long to wait, as an attractive and (at least to his mind) disturbingly young-looking blond doctor came through the office door. Her attention was so buried in the folder that she was carrying that she didn't notice Perlmutter until it was almost too late. "Oh!" she exclaimed, startled, "I'm so sorry, I didn't see you there..."

"It's quite all right," Perlmutter countered, dismissing her apology with a wave of his hand. "I completely understand the occupational hazard. Dr. Megan Andrews, I presume?"

It took Andrews a minute before she remembered who she was talking to. "Dr. *Perlmutter*? W-wow, I completely didn't recognize you," she stammered out in surprise, "you look *great*!"

Perlmutter smiled, shaking his head at the not-unexpected compliment. "I get that a lot. You called for a consult?"

Andrews nodded, bringing Perlmutter's attention over to the body he had been trying to avoid. "12ths been working on a series of unusual deaths. Cause of death exsanguination. As far as I can tell every drop of blood has been drained from the bodies. Mr. Albertson here is victim number three."

"Are there any incisions on the body that might indicate how the blood was drained?" asked Perlmutter.

Andrews shook her head. "If it were that easy, I wouldn't have called you. There are no incisions or man-made punctures anywhere on the body."

Perlmutter swallowed hard as he considered Andrew's reply. A year ago, he knew he would have never considered the possibility that was currently running through his mind. Now, though, he knew he couldn't live with himself if he didn't at least ask the question. "What about...bite marks?"

Andrews shook her head again. "The skin of each victim was completely unbroken. I was at a complete loss as to how the blood could have possibly been drained until our friend here showed up on my table."

The shiver that ran down Andrews' spine was not lost on Perlmutter. "What did you find, Dr. Andrews?"

"Take a look at this," Andrews replied. Perlmutter walked around the body to meet his fellow medical examiner on the other side. "See how the esophagus and the right atrium are stuck together?"

Perlmutter put on gloves, then positioned himself so that he could examine the area that Andrews was pointing out to him. "It's like they're fused..."

"Oh, that's not the weird part," countered Andrews. "Open up the esophagus where I made the incision."

Wondering where his counterpart was headed, Perlmutter separated the tube at the incision point. "There's...a hole..." he exclaimed.

Andrews nodded. "Perfectly circular and cauterized all the way around. It's like the killer used his mouth like a straw and sucked all his blood out that way. But as to how they did it..." She ran her fingers through her hair, letting out a long, protracted sigh. "I'm at a complete loss, here, Dr. Perlmutter..."

Perlmutter shushed his counterpart, completely absorbed in studying what he was seeing. "This doesn't have the normal signs of a vampire attack..." he mused.

Andrews' eyes flew wide. "Did...did you just say *vampire attack*, Dr. Perlmutter?" she gasped.

Perlmutter ignored her question; he was already on the phone. "It's Grumpy. Is Phoenix in yet?...Are *they* in yet?...Tell them to call the Iron Lady at the 12th. She's got a case for them." He took another look at the body in front of him...and a chill ran down *his* spine. "Yeah, this is *definitely* one for them..."

#

"But this is *my* case!"

Captain Victoria Gates sighed, her patience rapidly dwindling. "Do you have any suspects yet?"

The junior detective hesitated. "Well, no..."

Gates rubbed the bridge of her nose to try and stave off the approaching stress headache. "Any solid leads you're following up on?"

The detective's partner withered under their boss' intimidating gaze. "No, sir..."

"Do you even have a connection between the three victims besides their cause of death?"

The two junior detectives were suddenly finding the floor underneath their captain's desk to be endlessly fascinating. "No, sir..." they mumbled, quietly discouraged.

"Then unless you can find some good reason for me to let you keep working this case, I suggest the two of you get your irrationally territorial asses out of my office!"

The four Guardians passed the two frustrated junior detectives as they marched back to Castle and Beckett's old desks, clearly unhappy with their current situation. Beckett watched the younger detective for a nostalgic, sympathetic moment, then returned her thoughts to the person they were there to meet. "Rough day, captain?" she asked Gates.

Gates sighed, allowing herself to relax in the presence of her former senior detective and her team. "It's moments like these that make me with you all were still working here."

"Really?" Castle asked, surprised by the compliment.

"Well, three of you, at least," Gates countered.

Castle smiled back, accepting the teasing in stride. He wouldn't have expected any less from his former captain.

The captain looked up at her visitors for the first time since they entered in order to hand them three folders emblazoned with the NYPD logo. "Here's everything we have so far. Only thing I'm missing is the ME's report on the latest victim, and I believe I can be safe in assuming Dr. Parish is on her way to get that?"

"That was quick," Beckett commented, surprised that her old captain would hand her the information so quickly and so readily.

"When Dr. Andrews let me know she had called someone in for a consult I suspected this one was going to get back to you guys somehow," said Gates.

"Elliot Anderson, Daniel Westinghousen, and Katherine O'Leary," Beckett read the names off the files. "All three died from exsanguination?"

Gates nodded. "The first victim we simply assumed was drained and dumped..."

"Because the victim was found in Riverside Park?" asked Esposito.

Gates nodded again. "It was only after we got to a third victim that Dr. Andrews requested a consult."

"And there's no bite marks?" asked Ryan.

Gates shook her head. "None of the signs point to vampires or I would have called Katya, not you guys. Where is she, anyway? I would have thought any blood drainer would have been a case that would pique her interest..."

Ryan answered on his old friend's behalf. "She and Fallon have been a little crazy the past couple of weeks, with the wedding and all..."

"Can we talk to the detectives who processed the crime scenes?" asked Esposito.

Gates agreed readily, and went to the door of her office to call the two men over. "Richardson! Velasquez!"

The two junior detectives quickly answered their captain's call. "You wanted to see us, sir?" asked Velasquez.

Gates pointed out the Guardians to the two detectives. "These are the Homeland Security Agents who will be taking over the Anderson case." Even though she knew that Velasquez didn't need the introductions, Gates added the names for Richardson's benefit. "Agents Beckett, Castle, Ryan and Esposito. They'd like to ask you a few questions."

"Agents," Richardson greeted the Guardians, not recognizing who they were. "What can we do for you?"

Esposito shook hands with the detectives on behalf of the group, then asked them a couple of basic questions. "Your captain mentioned that you assumed Ms. O'Leary was killed away from where her body was found. Did you find any tire tracks at the scene? Anything to indicate how her body was moved?"

Richardson shook his head. "We found shoe prints going in and out of the park, but they were generic running shoe tracks, so they aren't going to give us any tangible leads."

"What about the other two scenes?"

Velasquez agreed with her partner. "Same. Although there was some mud tracked in to the second crime scene, all we know right now is that the killer *may* be wearing cheap dollar-store tennis shoes."

"Any blood tracked through the crime scenes?" asked Ryan.

Richardson shook his head. "No, sir."

"Are all three bodies still at the morgue?" asked Beckett.

"Ms. O'Leary's remains were released to her family," Gates replied, "but the two men are still there."

"Then I guess that's our next stop," Beckett announced to the group, effectively ending the conversation. "Thank you for your assistance, Captain," she added formally, giving everyone in the room the indication that the meeting was, indeed, over.

Detective Nadine Velasquez studied the Homeland Security agents as they left her captain's office. Once the elevator doors closed on the group and they officially left the homicide bullpen, Velasquez turned back to her captain. "Can I ask a question, sir?"

"What is it, Velasquez?" asked Gates, not looking up from the file she had opened on her desk.

"The word around the precinct was that Detective Beckett and her crew retired after the Plaza collapse," Velasquez replied.

Gates was starting to catch on to where her junior detective was headed. "They did..."

"Obviously not," Richardson chimed in, incredulous to the subtext of the conversation, "if they've moved on to working for Homeland Security..."

Velasquez ignored her partner's comment. "Sir, if *they're* the ones taking over this case..."

"Get to the point, Velasquez," Gates pushed, wanting to get the conversation over with quickly.

"Sir...are they them?"

Gates shrugged off Velasquez' question with a question. "Them, detective?"

"You know, *them*..."

Gates decided to go with the patented bald face almost-lie-and-diversion tactic. "I have no idea what you're talking about, Detective Velasquez. You are dismissed. Oh, and Detective?"

"Yes, sir?"

"Make sure the report on the Robertson case is on my desk by the end of the day."

Velasquez' face fell as she thouught about the upcoming day of paperwork...all thoughts of Beckett and her team temporarily forgotten. "Yes, sir."

#

"tri...diva...odin...IDTI!"

Katya studied her students' technique carefully, gently correcting those who were drilling their forms in a way that could be potentially harmful to them somewhere down the line. Her mind, though, was only minimally focused on the task at hand. Most of her thoughts were focused on her intense, strange dream. She hadn't thought of her family or her human past for the better part of a century. So why, now, were they all she could think about?

"Sensel...?"

Katya shook her head. forcing herself to concentrate on the present and the students that were currently surrounding her. She looked up to the clock on the wall; an hour had passed by without her notice. "All right, class is over for today," Katya announced to the group. "Bow to each other, bow to the symbol of our country, and bow to the symbol of our..."

_It cannot be. That's...that's impossible..._

Katya gasped as she recognized the reflection she saw in the workout room's wall of mirrors. She closed her eyes and counted to three; she was *sure* that her eyes must be playing tricks on her and that when she opened her eyes, the image would be gone. No such luck; it was still there. Katya took a deep breath, turning away from the mirror and in the direction where the source of the image should be. Sure enough...when she turned around Katya found herself face-to-face with her older brother. "Ivan," she gasped out, choking back a sob.

Ivan, for his part, was not nearly as happy to see Katya as she was to see him. "Who do you think you are, *sister*? What makes you so much more important than every other woman in the world..."

Katya's face paled as she heard her brother's words in stunned silence. "Ivan," she exclaimed, barely above a whisper...

Ivan was just getting started. "You think you're so smart. You think you're so *pretty*. You think you're so *strong*. You think you're stronger than a man. You think you're better than men. *All* men. But the truth is that you're *worthless*. Useless. You're not even worth being hired out as a servant girl. Or sold as a slave. Father couldn't even find someone who deemed you worthy of being their twenty-sixth wife..."

"STOP!" Katya screamed at the top of her lungs. She turned away from her brother, forcing her eyes shut and holding her hands over her ears to block out the torrent of abuse. "STOP IT! You're not real! You're not! You're not real, you're not real, you're not real, you're not real, you're not real..."

Strong hands pulled Katya's hands away from her years with a gentle, but forceful grip. "Kat?" asked Fallon, hoping the touch would help to shake his fiancée out of whatever emotional frenzy state she had put herself in. "Kat, honey, it's me. Mark." The worried edge to his voice was starting to grow into it's own state of panic. "Please, baby. Just let me know you can hear me..."

Katya's attention jumped into the present moment with a start. She shook her head to try and clear the image of her brother out of it, and while she was able to dismiss the image, she couldn't shake the words out of her head.

Fallon watched in shock as his Katya, his beautiful, strong, brilliant daywalker flung her arms around him and broke down into sobs. He returned her embrace and tried to soothe her with assurances that he wasn't feeling. "Shh...shhh...it's okay, sweetheart. I promise, everything's going to be okay..."

#

**_Thanks to those who left comments for the last chapter. It always makes me so happy to know that there are people who are willing to let me tell them a story, no matter how off-the-wall it may be. Which is why I am always so very, very happy to hear what you guys have to say: good, bad or otherwise. So don't forget to leave a comment!_**


	3. Chapter 3

Out of the corner of her eye, Beckett watched Castle look through the three case files while she drove them to the City Medical Examiner's office. "Castle?"

"Hmmm?" asked Castle, his eyes never looking up from the file.

"Anything interesting?"

Castle smiled mischievously. "Why don't you tell me?"

Beckett rolled her eyes at the reference to the telepathic connection that linked them as soulmates. "I can't do that and keep my attention focused on the road, Castle, you know that. Now have you found anything interesting in the files or what?"

The ringing of Castle's cell phone cut him off before he had a chance to answer his partner's question. "Castle."

"Rick?" asked the man on the other end of the line. "It's...Jackson Hunt."

Castle perked up at the sound of his father's voice...but the worry in the operative's voice overrided any thoughts of this being a pleasant conversation. "What is it?"

"Rick, remember when I told you that I had developed my own network of contacts over the course of my career?"

"Yeah...?" asked Castle warily, waiting for the other shoe to drop.

Beckett swore she could almost hear her future father-in-law blush on the other end of the line. "One of the things I've used that network for over the years is to keep tabs on you and your mom," Hunt admitted.

Castle flushed with anger for only the briefest of moments. _If Hunt's calling about this,_ he realized quickly, _then there has to be some big danger headed our way. Focus, Rick, focus.._. "What's going on?"

"I just thought you might want to know that Meredith has just bought a plane ticket to New York. She'll be in town tomorrow afternoon."

A nervous knot began to form in Castle's stomach as his mind raced through all of the potential implications of what that meant for his future. "Thanks for the heads up," Castle told his father, the dread in his voice obvious.

"Just thought you should know," Hunt agreed with a sympathetic chuckle. "Good luck, son."

"Thanks," Castle responded dully before ending the call. He looked up to find that Beckett, as he suspected, had been listening in on the call and his reaction to it. "What?"

"I just don't see what the big deal is," Beckett replied with a shrug. "Alexis hasn't seen her mom in what, a year and a half? It'll be good for them to spend time together."

Castle rolled his eyes, quickly realizing that his partner had yet to come to the same conclusion that he had. "Beckett...Meredith hasn't been around for *a year and a half*."

"Yeah?" Beckett countered, confused as to the point her fiancé was trying to make.

"What has happened in our lives in the past year and a half?"

Beckett pulled into the parking lot at the Medical Examiner's office, her face falling rapidly as her mind put the pieces together. "Oh my God, Castle...what are we going to do?"

"Well," Castle replied as the pair got out of the car, "she's coming mostly to get time with Alexis, so hopefully we won't have to worry about it..."

"She *stayed* at the *loft* last time she was here, Castle!" Beckett countered. "What are the odds that we're not going to see her?"

Castle sighed as he opened the door to the building so that Beckett could walk through ahead of him. "Guess we'll jump off that bridge when we come to it..." he sighed.

#

Castle and Beckett entered the morgue to find Lanie and Perlmutter examining a body on the center slab alongside a third medical examiner. "Agent Beckett, Agent Castle," Perlmutter greeted the pair without looking up, acknowledging the doctor he assumed his team didn't recognize. "Dr. Megan Andrews. She took over for me after I...left my old job."

"Nice to meet you," Castle greeted the blond doctor as she shook both Beckett and Castle's hands.

"Agents," Andrews replied.

Perlmutter picked up the meeting from there. "Agents, I take it you've been briefed?"

Beckett nodded. "We just came from the 12th. Is this Mr. Anderson?"

Lanie nodded in reply. "You guys need to see this." The two Guardians moved in the direction their friend requested. "This is the only point where we believe the blood could have left the body."

Castle leaned in to examine the spot, fascinated by what Lanie was pointing out to him. "Is that...a *hole*...?"

"Yep," replied Perlmutter. "Right now the best theory we've got is that our killer somehow fuses the victim's esophagus to his heart, burns a hole through at the fuse point and uses the victim's digestive track like a pouring spout."

"Or a drinking straw," Castle mused.

Andrews rolled her eyes, clearly skeptical of Castle's theory. "What is it with you guys, this case, and *vampires*..."

Perlmutter and the three Guardians ignored the ME's comment. "Is there some medical device that could have been on the heart or the esophagus that the killer could have caused to malfunction?" asked Castle. "Something he could then pull out in the blood...a pacemaker, maybe?"

Lanie shook her head. "A pacemaker would be much larger. Plus the hole is just too perfect." She pointed out the cauterization around the edges of the hole. "Whatever did this burned through both the esophagus and the heart all the way around."

"Do we have any idea what could have done this?" asked Castle. "Maybe a surgical laser, or a scope of some type?"

"A laser would be a logical possiblity," Perlmutter replied, "except for the fact that there were no incisions on the body. There's no way to feed something that big and that hot down the esophagus without leaving burn marks along the way."

"Which you didn't find?" All three doctors shook their heads.

It was only then that Castle realized that his partner hadn't contributed anything to the conversation at that point. "What's your take on this, Beckett?" he asked. When Beckett didn't respond, Castle fought to regain her attention by placing a hand on her upper arm. "Kate? What is it?"

Beckett was still somewhat lost in her distraction. "You guys don't smell that?"

Perlmutter had to resist the urge to chuckle...giving who was asking the question. "Smell what, agent?"

Beckett was too busy forming a theory in her mind to answer. She turned her attention to the city's ME. "Dr. Andrews, I need to see the other victim."

Andrews nodded in acknowledgement and opened one of the cadaver drawers. "I examined Mr. Westinghousen last night," she told the group. "He has the same hole in his heart as Mr. Anderson."

Beckett's focus was devoted solely to the body in the drawer. "It doesn't make any *sense*..." she mused.

"What doesn't make sense?" asked Castle.

"There's a scent around the two bodies," Beckett explained, her mind still consumed with processing the sensory information she was filtering, "it's real faint, but it smells like...it smells like a vampire..."

While Dr. Andrews rolled her eyes for a second time, Beckett's teammates knew far too much to not take her comments seriously. "That was my first thought as well," agreed Perlmutter, "but there aren't any bite marks *anywhere* on the body..."

"No," Beckett interrupted Perlmutter's counterargument when she fully recognized the smell that had been so puzzling to her. "It doesn't just smell like a vampire. It smells...it smells like Katya."

#

"How's Jenny doing?" Esposito asked his partner as they walked down the warehouse's hallway to the bullpen.

Ryan sighed; it was clear that his wife's condition was still a concern weighing on his mind. "Better. I've taught her some of the techniques Alexis taught me when I first had to deal with all this...but they don't always work. And since she's not technically sick..."

Esposito caught on immediately. "Lanie can't help her. What about Dr. Banner?"

"He's working on it," Ryan replied. "It's tricky, though, because there aren't a whole lot of drugs that pregnant women can take..."

"And with all the weird stuff that comes with being a Guardian..."

"No one knows what she can take without hurting the baby," Ryan completed his partner's completion of his own thought. "Bruce thinks I might be able to teach some control to the baby once it develops some higher brain function, but that won't be for a couple of months."

Esposito shook his head sadly, feeling nothing but sympathy for his friends. "So what are you guys gonna do?"

"I've been thinking about asking Castle to come over and power-proof the apartment," Ryan admitted.

Esposito let out a low whistle of surprise. "Not that I haven't thought about it a couple of times, but isn't that kinda drastic?"

"It is," Ryan agreed, "but at least it would give Jenny some peace for a while..."

Ryan's voice trailed off as he noticed Fallon and Katya holding each other in one of the exercise rooms...and Katya was crying. It only took the barest brush of a connection for Ryan to recognize that Fallon was consoling his fiancé over...something. He nodded over to his partner, who followed him into the exercise room. "Guys?" Ryan asked the couple, "What's going on? What's happened?"

Fallon tried to pull away from his beloved, but Katya's terrified, firm grip held him in place. He tapped his temple to ask Ryan to connect to his mind. _I wish I could tell you,_ Fallon told Ryan, _but she was like this when I came in here. A little worse, actually..._

Ryan nodded his understanding, and adjusted his focus to try to connect to his ex-girlfriend's mind. The mental blockade he discovered shocked Ryan enough to force him completely back into his own mind.

Esposito couldn't help but notice the expression on his partner's face. "What is it, bro?"

"I couldn't reach her," said Ryan, clearly surprised by the experience. Once the shock wore off, he poured his energy into projecting a soothing peace throughout the entire room and put his hand on his ex's upper back to try and help comfort her. "Katya?" he asked her quietly. "It's Kevin. Are you okay?"

Katya only let go of her fiancé when she absorbed enough of Ryan's comforting energy to allow herself to calm down. "I wish I could say yes," she told Ryan quietly, "but I don't know. I honestly don't know..."

Fallon blinked back surprise at his beloved's statement. "What is it, Kat? What's going on?"

Katya opened her mouth to speak, then closed it quickly...the emotions overwhelming her before she could figure out how to give words to her experiences. Esposito couldn't help but notice her hesitation. "Katya?" he asked quietly, "Would you mind if we took a look?"

"Of course," Katya agreed.

Ryan connected to his partner's mind as he updated his copy of the vampire's memories with her most recent experiences, then opened an extra connection to help Esposito's focus as he reached into Katya's subconscious. Once the two Guardians were finished with the process, Ryan asked the one question that was sticking out in his mind. "I can't believe I've never asked you this before, but do vampires dream?"

"Newborns do," Katya replied, "but after a hundred years or so the memories are just so overwhelming that it is easier on the brain to just shut down completely when we sleep."

"So why are you starting to dream again *now*?" asked Fallon.

Ryan's eyes widened as a theory formed in his mind about what was happening. "The wedding..."

"The wedding?" asked Fallon, confused. "What does Katya and I getting married have to do with any of this?"

"Getting married is a pretty major event in someone's life," Ryan explained. "And any major life event is stressful."

Esposito couldn't resist the opportunity. "Showing off those psychology classes, eh, bro?" he teased.

Ryan ignored Esposito and returned his attention back to Katya. "Everyone reacts to stress in different ways. Some people get hyper, other people get tense. Maybe you work out major stress by dreaming..."

Fallon caught on to Ryan's theory. "And with all of the issues you had in your human life when it came to marriage, that's probably why you're working through your stress by re-living that time in your life. Maybe if you make peace with it..."

"The nightmares will go away?" Katya asked quietly.

"I can't say for certain whether it would work," Ryan shrugged, "but it's the best theory I can come up with at the moment."

Katya appreciated the effort. "Thank you," she told them, wiping the tears away from her eyes.

"C'mon," Fallon steered Katya toward the door with a hand gently placed at the small of her back. "I'll draw you a bath and heat you up a nice glass of o-negative. What do you say?"

"I'm afraid that might have to wait for a bit," said Beckett.

The group in the exercise room turned to find Castle, Beckett and Lanie standing in the doorway. "Mistress Lièrén," Katya greeted Beckett, "how may I help?"

"Is this about that call from the NYPD?" asked Fallon. "That consult Grumpy went on?"

Beckett nodded. "The 12th has been investigating three mysterious deaths. The bodies were fully exsanguinated."

Katya's eyes went wide. "Blood drainers?"

Beckett nodded. "Thing is, I picked up an odd scent on two of the bodies. Yours."

"Mine?" exclaimed Katya, taken aback by the idea. "But...I haven't fed on anyone but Mark in months...Master...Master Xiānshī..."

Beckett reluctantly pressed forward. "Katya, I hate to ask this, but do you remember where you were last Wednesday between midnight and 2am?"

#

**_Comments?_**


	4. Chapter 4

"I...I was at my apartment with Mark," Katya replied warily. "We were just about to retire for the evening..."

"Isn't 2am an odd time for a vampire to go to bed?" asked Castle.

"My daywalker blessing and my nature are still in constant conflict with each other," Katya explained. "I tend to end up wanting to sleep at odd hours..."

Beckett cut off Katya's explanation so that she could bring their focus back to the case. "Fallon? Esposito? Is that true?"

"I was kinda out of it, I didn't really check the time..." Fallon admitted.

Esposito, though, nodded. "She's clear for our time of death window. She was with Fallon at the time."

Castle held out his hand for Esposito to shake. "What about the other two victims?"

Esposito grabbed Castle's hand, using his memories of going through the files to get the information about when the other two victims had died. Once he cross-referenced the information with Katya's memories, he quickly had the answer everyone was looking for. "She's clean, Beckett. Solid alibis for both nights."

"But then why would I smell you at the crime scene?" insisted Beckett. "It doesn't make any sense..." She turned her attention back to Esposito. "Has she ever met any of the three victims? Maybe...had drinks with them at a club, fed off them?"

Katya seemed to be insulted by the insinuation. "Mistress, I have been *completely* faithful to my beloved since we pledged to be married..."

Esposito cut off Katya before she could work up to a full, if muted, tirade. "She's never met any of them," he replied to Beckett's question, shaking his head.

"Besides," Fallon countered, "wouldn't the bodies have had bite marks on them if a vampire had fed on them?"

"And there were no cuts or bites anywhere on any of the bodies," Beckett agreed, still turning over the information in her head.

Fallon was determined to get everyone's attention focused back on the case and *off* his fiancée. "Then how was the blood drained from the bodies?"

"A small hole was burned through the esophagus and into the heart," Castle replied. "From there, no one's sure."

"The Yīzhì and her team are still working on it?" asked Fallon. Castle nodded. All conversation ceased as Fallon's cell phone rang. The number was one that the director recognized immediately. "This is Phoenix," he answered, locking eyes with Beckett and Ryan to make sure they were listening in. "Uh huh...and the area's been secured? Thank you, captain. We'll be right there."

Beckett announced the results of the call to the group. "There's been another one."

Fallon nodded. "The body was found near the fountain at Washington Square Park."

"Katya," asked Beckett, "would you accompany us to the park? There might be something about the scene that you'll pick up on that we're missing."

Having calmed her emotions somewhat, Katya perked up at the idea of helping the Guardians. "I am happy to help in whatever way you require."

#

Velasquez and Richardson met the Katya and the Guardians under the Washington Square arch. "Cap told me she called you guys," Velasquez greeted Beckett as she led her team under the crime scene tape. "Body was noticed about an hour ago."

"Noticed?" asked Castle.

"See for yourself," said Richardson.

The team maneuvered their way around the coroner's team and crime scene techs until they reached the fountain in the center of the park. The pale, wrinkled form of a young woman was posed to appear as if she was simply an older sitting on the edge of the fountain, resting while bringing her groceries home from the store. "Can anyone tell me what's wrong with this picture?" asked Velasquez.

"There are no groceries in the cart," replied Beckett.

"The body was obviously posed," Castle continued as the Guardians took charge of the scene, "to divert attention from the fact that she was dead."

Fallon's attention never left the body. "Probably hoping that people would be so focused on themselves that they would be oblivious to what was around them."

"You mean be stereotypical New Yorkers?" Castle added. Fallon nodded.

Katya stared at the body, dumbfounded. "Honored ones," she exclaimed, "I am amazed that you could believe that any of my kind could have done this..."

"You're *sure* a vampire didn't do this?" asked Esposito.

Katya shook her head sadly. "When we feed, we take the blood and *only* the blood. This being...this being took everything that he could take and still leave a body behind."

"Do you have any idea what kind of a being *could* have done this?" asked Ryan.

Katya shook her head again, sadly. "I am sorry, honored ones. I do not."

"I might," Castle suggested, looking at another part of the body. "Beckett, take a look at this."

Beckett walked around the body to kneel next to where Castle was studying a large red spot on the victim's long skirt. She took a moment to try to understand what her fiancé was finding so fascinating about the spot. Her eyes quickly widened as she recognized what she was faintly smelling. "There's blood in that stain. Human blood."

Castle nodded, Beckett's comment partly validating his working theory. "It's too red to be *just* blood, though..."

"No," Beckett agreed. "It's not just blood. It's too red to be *just* blood." She rubbed the dried-out stain between her gloved fingers. "There's two different powders mixed in..."

"Red brick powder and cornmeal," said Castle, completing his partner's thought.

Beckett turned to Castle, surprised and impressed that he made that determination off such meager clues. "I think you're right. How'd you know?"

"Our killer is human," Castle declared definitively, as he stood up and stepped away from the body.

"You're *sure* about that, bro?" Esposito exclaimed, eyes widening in surprise. "How?"

"That red brick powder and cornmeal are used in Vodun," Castle explained. "You remember that symbol on those amulets when we were investigating those Nigerian ritual killings?" Beckett, Ryan and Esposito all nodded. "When you're trying to invoke the spirits you draw a symbol like that one on the floor with cornmeal or red brick powder before you cast the spell."

Beckett stood up and backed away from the body, standing next to her teammates as she motioned for Dr. Andrews and her team to finish processing the body. "So why the combination of the two?" she asked.

"And why mix the two with the blood?" Esposito chimed in.

Castle shrugged. "No idea."

"Should we call Michelle?" asked Beckett.

Castle nodded...then perked up when he remembered where they were. "Actually, we're not that far from her restaurant. Anyone up for cow's foot stew?"

Beckett could only roll her eyes in response.

#

"Burkono" was a hole-in-the-wall restaurant with a half-dozen tables and a kitchen in the back that was barely big enough for the larger-than-life chef that seemed to dominate the tiny space. "I got two orders of akara, a pepper soup, a suya steak and an edikaikong," Michelle called out back to the kitchen over the chaos of a room full of men and women talking over each other in a half-dozen different languages as they ate. "And will you *please* hurry up with those tiger shrimp..."

"Yeah, yeah, yeah," the burly Nigerian grumbled before the sizzle of an order of tiger shrimp hit the grill. Michelle chuckled at the man's reaction before going back to processing the credit card payment she had been working on.

All conversation in the restaurant ceased as Castle and Beckett entered the small space. An elderly Nigerian woman got up from her table in the back corner of the restaurant and shuffled slowly to the front door, her movements clearly heard by everyone in the stunned silence. Once she got within arm's length of the Guardians, the woman fell at Castle's feet in worship. "Oluwa da abo bo mi..." she whispered.

"Any idea what she just told you?" Beckett asked Castle in a quiet whisper.

Michelle stepped forward. "My grandmother just asked for God to protect her. Actually, I think she might have just asked for *you* to protect her." Her face then broke out into a wide, teasing smile. "Wonder why that is..."

Castle had a sneaking suspicion he knew what Michelle was implying. "So you know."

"Some of my customers recognized you during that little dust-up in Times Square," Michelle replied. "It was all people could talk about around here for at least a week. A few of my friends even joined that Network of yours. Now what can I do for you...Guardians?"

"We have a case we could use your help on," Beckett replied, wanting to steer the focus away from who they were and direct it to why they were there. "Is there someplace private that we can talk?"

The older woman jumped up from her position at Castle's feet and turned to face her granddaughter's customers. "Out!" she screamed; it was the loudest she had been since the Guardians had walked through her doors. "We closed! Everybody OUT!"

#

It took the better part of a half hour to empty the restaurant, and another half an hour for the chef (at grandmother's insistence) to throw together a feast of the restaurant's specialties for the group to enjoy. So the street lamps on Commerce street were brightly burning through the darkness by the time Michelle was able to start looking at the crime scene photos over coffee and dessert. "So you think your killer might be trying to call a Loa?" she asked Castle.

Castle nodded. "We found traces of cornmeal and red brick powder on the clothes of the last victim."

"Elliot Anderson?"

Beckett shook her head. "There's been one more since then. She's the one we found the cornmeal and red brick powder on."

Michelle flipped through the information in front of her. "I don't see the file here..."

"That's because we just came from the crime scene," said Castle. "Washington Square Park."

Michelle shuddered. "That's so close..." she whispered.

Ryan gently poured energy into trying to reassure the woman he was sitting across from. "Don't forget, the victims were killed away from the crime scenes. We have no idea where the actual ritual was performed yet."

Michelle nodded, involuntarily relaxing from the comforting change in the energy of the room. "Well, the cornmeal fits the tradition," she mused as she studied the files, "but Nigerians usually don't use a mix of powders. Haitian practitioners will sometimes mix cornmeal and wood ash, but that's the only variation I've ever heard of."

"Maybe our killer was just using what he had on hand?" Esposito suggested.

"Yeah, maybe," Michelle agreed, not looking up from the photos in front of her. "All the bodies were drained of blood, right?" Michelle added that information to her musings when the seven other heads at the table nodded. "I wonder..."

Castle pushed Michelle to work through her thought process out loud. "What is it, Michelle?"

"I think..." replied Michelle, "I think your killer might be trying to call Baron Samedi. And if he is...man, that's a *bad* thing..."

"The bad guy from 'Grimm'?" asked Ryan.

Michelle shook her head. "Baron Samedi doesn't turn people into mindless zombies. Part of his job is to *keep* people from becoming mindless zombies. He'd be more inclined to cause people to party until they drop dead, then bring them *back* from the dead and trap them in their own bodies under his control. Thing is, though...people wouldn't call him for that."

"What would they call him for?" asked Lanie.

"If your killer is calling Baron Samedi, it's because someone they desperately love is terminally ill. According to the legend, you can't die if Baron Samedi doesn't want to dig your grave. He can also be *talked* out of digging a grave...but there's a price. And it can be a steep one."

"Like believing you have to kill in Baron Samedi's name to keep your loved one alive?" asked Fallon.

Michelle nodded. "If your killer believes that he needs to keep offering sacrifices in Baron Samedi's name, then he's only going to stop if the object of his affection dies...or he does."

#

**_Quick A/N: I don't watch Grimm. I got turned off in season 1 when it felt like it was mostly going to be a "monster of the week" kind of thing. But when I was looking into Baron Samedi, an entry in the Grimm Wiki came up and I felt like I needed to differentiate between the Grimm character and what I've researched of the real life-based legend. So if you *do* watch Grimm, please try to remember that, from this point on, this Baron Samedi will be *very* different from what you might have seen on the TV show._**

**_And, as always, I very, very much appreciate your comments!_**


	5. Chapter 5

Kevin Ryan didn't need Beckett's superhearing to have a fairly good idea of what was going on in his apartment. He opened the door to see almost exactly the scene he was expecting: Jenny was pacing the living room with baby Alexis in his arms, trying and failing to soothe the screaming child. The look on Jenny's face when she locked eyes with her husband was one of pure desperation. "I can't get her to stop crying," she explained. "I've got all these people's thoughts running through my head and I can't get them to stop and I can't figure out what Alexis needs and I've got a headache and I'm just so tired..."

Chuckling sympathetically, Ryan flooded the room with comforting energy...causing Jenny to sway on her already unsteady feet. "Hey," he suggested, "why don't I take Alexis so you can get some rest? If you can meditate for a while, you might be able to get those thoughts out of your head long enough to get a few hours of sleep."

"'Kay," Jenny agreed, far too tired to even consider arguing.

Ryan gathered his daughter into his arms and gently nudged his only half-awake wife toward their bedroom. Closing the door behind his wife, Ryan focused all of his attention on his daughter. "Hi honey," he cooed, the baby already relaxing under the influence of his gift. "You and your momma have been having trouble, huh? Maybe you can tell me what's wrong?"

_Ba-ba_ echoed in his mind, the quiet voice being one Ryan already recognized as belonging to his daughter.

"Oh," Ryan exclaimed. "You want'cha ba-ba, huh?"

_Yeah_, replied Alexis.

Ryan carried Alexis to the kitchen and pulled a bottle from the refrigerator. "You want it warm?"

_Nuh uh. Ungwee._

"Okay..." Ryan consented with a chuckle, only slightly surprised at his daughter's impatience. He stuck the nipple of the bottle in his daughter's mouth and she latched onto it greedily, grabbing onto the bottle itself with both hands. "That's my girl..." he cooed proudly, kissing the top of his daughter's head while she drank.

Ryan carried his daughter over to the window, watching the lights of the city twinkle at his feet. In the relative silence surrounding him, the gentle smell of his daughter's skin brought the Guardian's thoughts back to the case they were working on. He would die for the little girl he held in his arms, of that much he was certain. The same went for Jenny and the child she was now carrying. But could he *kill* for them? If it ever came down to it, would he be capable of taking the lives of innocent people if it meant protecing the family he loved so very, very much?

He held Alexis just a little bit tighter as he considered the question...and found that he didn't have an answer.

#

Castle studied his fiancée's face carefully as they rode the elevator to the loft. "Penny for your thoughts?" he asked her quietly.

The question shook Beckett away from her musings. "Oh? Sorry...I was just thinking about the case, and this whole business with Katya..."

"Still trying to figure out why you smelled her on the bodies even though she's alibied out?" Beckett nodded...then her attention was drawn elsewhere. Castle noticed his partner's distraction immediately. "Beckett? What is it?"

Beckett focused her hearing on the loft, trying to determine the source of the unusual noise in the should-have-been quiet apartment. When she realized the source of the noise, it did nothing to help the level of her stress...it simply shifted the stress to the bigger problem. "Castle," she hissed out in a harsh whisper, "I thought you said Meredith was never going to stay with us again when she's in town?!"

"She's *not*," insisted Castle.

"Then why does she still have a key?" Beckett countered.

Castle cursed his bad luck even as he pulled back the shield spell he had just cast. "Meredith's in the apartment?"

"Wanting to surprise you, no doubt," replied Beckett. "You didn't take her key back?"

"She probably got the super to let her in," Castle suggested with a half-groan as he massaged the bridge of his nose. "She tends to do things like that."

"So what are you going to do about it?" Beckett pushed.

Castle's eyes lit up with an idea. "Pop us to a deserted tropical island and conjure us up a place that would make Richard Branson jealous?" His face fell, though, as Beckett shook her head. "No?" he sighed. "On to plan B, then..."

"What's Plan B?"

"I'll let you know when I come up with it," replied Castle. Beckett rolled her eyes and pointed to the door, waiting with rapidly diminishing patience for her fiancé to open it. Castle then took in a deep breath and let it out slowly as he waited with his hand on the doorknob. When he was out of breath and had a spark of a plan in his mind, Castle opened the door.

"Surprise!" Meredith called out from the kitchen.

Castle was relieved he didn't have to 'react' surprised, just 'act' surprised. "Meredith!" he called back, clearly nervous. "What are you doing here? I thought you decided to stay in LA for a while..."

"Oh, you know what it's like out there," Meredith replied casually, "I just needed to get away from all that fakeness for a while. I missed you. I missed Alexis. I even missed Kate..." Beckett rolled her eyes at the last part of Meredith's comment as the woman continued, "so I just figured I'd pop by and see how everyone's doing."

"Pop by?" Beckett asked warily. "Hopping on a cross-country flight is just 'popping by'?"

Meredith ignored the comment. "So, how have you been, Rick?"

"Good, good," Castle replied, trying to continue to sound casual. "You know, Alexis is living in the dorms at Columbia now..."

"I *know*," Meredith agreed, gushing enthusiastically, "and isn't that just so grown up of her!" Her voice started to choke up with exaggerated emotion. "I just can't believe I'm the mother of a college student..."

"Which is why I booked you a suite at the Lucerne for as long as you want it," Castle insisted.

Beckett raised her eyes in surprise at the suggestion. _Really_? she asked Castle through their bond-link.

_I'll go over there as soon as I can get her out of here_, Castle replied. Out loud, he continued to sell the idea to Meredith. "I mean after all, the loft is so far away from the school that it will be horribly inconvenient for you to stay here..."

"Oh that is so sweet of you, Rick," Meredith countered, trying to sound humble, "but that's totally unnecessary..."

"I *insist*," Castle argued, slowly nudging the woman toward the door.

While Meredith didn't seem to be getting the hint, she was fully aware of the direction in which she was being hustled. "But...but I've already put my things in the guest room..."

"Don't worry," Castle reassured her with a knowing smile. "I have a *wonderful* messenger service. They'll get your bags to the hotel before your cab can get within five blocks. This, I can *promise* you..."

Meredith was dumbfounded by the idea that she was no longer welcome in a place that she had once called her home. At the same time, she knew that there was no way she could turn down an offer as generous as an open-ended stay in a luxury hotel suite. Not without revealing the true intentions for her visit. "Well...well, all right, I g-guess..." Meredith stammered out. "Would you...would you at least join me for a late dinner?"

"I would," Castle apologized, "but we've just had a very long day and Kate and I were just looking to have bit of quiet time at home before we called it a night. Rain check?"

"All...all right," Meredith relented, too shocked and confused to do anything else.

Castle opened the door for Meredith and followed her through it. _Back in a minute,_ he informed his fiancée. _Just going to put her in a cab, then get her checked into the hotel and send her bags to her room._

Beckett had to resist the urge to smirk, even though she knew that Meredith wasn't there to see it. _Okay_, she agreed, _see you soon._

#

"Are you *sure* you don't want any of this?" Fallon asked his beloved, mostly to try and engage her in conversation. "The curries from this place are just so good..."

Katya smiled half-heartedly, quickly catching latching on to the distraction that her fiancé was trying to provide. "It does smell wonderful," she agreed. "Reminds me a lot of my old human home..."

Fallon leaned back as he finished off the last bites of the lamb curry. "You don't talk about them very much..."

"No," Katya agreed as she took a sip of the warm mix of human and animal blood in her coffee cup. "My time with them was almost half a millenia ago, Mark. They are not often at the forefront of my thoughts..."

"Until now."

Katya nodded grimly. "Do you agree with what Kevin said? About these...these dreams occurring because we are about to get married?"

"Nowadays they call it getting cold feet," Mark explained.

"Cold feet?" asked Katya. "But...my feet are always cold..."

Mark chuckled at Katya's response. "It's an expression, Kat. Getting cold feet happens when someone is getting married and is scared by the commitment they're making to that other person. The idea of making a commitment that lasts the rest of a human life...it can be intimidating to some people."

"Even if that commitment rarely lasts the full span of a human lifetime today?" asked Katya.

A dark cloud passed over Mark's expression. "No one goes into marriage thinking it's only going to be for a few years," he told her as images of his late wife flashed through his mind. "When you're up there...you commit to being with that person through everything, good or bad, rich or poor, sickness and in health, until you are parted by death. Which, in our case, is an even longer way off than it would be for a normal couple."

"Ah," Katya agreed with a nod, her mind working to understand the concept of a western wedding ceremony and why someone would get 'cold feet'. "So this is a normal response to getting married?"

Mark finished off his beer before responding. "It's a *human* response, yes." He reached across the table, set down her glass of blood, and took Katya's hands into his own. "But Kat, honey...when is anything with you ever 'normal'?"

Katya smiled, appreciating the humor in Fallon's question. "Did you have these 'cold feet' before you married Rebecca?"

"A little," Mark admitted. "I had only been with the bureau for a couple of years, and we were so young. God, we were so young..." His voice started to trail off, lost in nostalgic thoughts of his first wedding and the pained thoughts of her death.

Katya's voice, as ever, focused Mark's attention back to the present. "And..." she asked timidly, "do you have these cold feet...about marrying me?"

"No," Fallon replied, his voice firm with conviction. He pushed his chair around the table so he could reach more than just Katya's hand, then he held both of Katya's hands in his own. "Katya...a few months after we met, before everything happened...I was thinking about asking you to turn me."

Katya's eyes flew wide. "Really?"

Mark nodded. His hand trailed up and down Katya's arm, wanting to get as close to his beloved as he could. "I love you, Ekaterina Anastasiya Petrovich soon-to-be Fallon. And I will love you for as long as I choose to walk this Earth. Compared to that...getting married is just signing a piece of paper and having a big party."

Katya was grinning from ear to ear, her heart overflowing with love for the being that was holding her hands in his own. She said a silent prayer to any and all gods who may have been listening, thanking them for letting her live long enough to find this man.

"What about you?" Fallon asked. "I was lucky. Almost every thought I connect to being married is a good and happy one. Your experience was the complete opposite. Are you..." He swallowed hard, a sudden attack of nerves making it hard for him to ask the question he needed to ask. "Are you still worried about marrying me?"

Katya's reply was to slide over from her chair into Fallon's lap. "Well," she teased, "now that I have a better idea of what it means to be married...I have already made one eternal commitment in my lifetime. What's one more?"

Fallon broke into a wide, radiant smile before claiming Katya's lips with his own. The kiss deepened quickly as the couple's love sparked the familiar, hungry, animalistic passion that they both knew so well. Katya broke away from the kiss first, trailing smaller kisses down to her favorite spot on Fallon's neck. As the desires of her nature built up within her, her fangs started to ache; the craving for the blood of her beloved overriding almost all other thoughts. Mark tensed up slightly, his own body anticipating the mix of pain and pleasure that he knew was about to come...

And blinked back a brief moment of confusion when the next thing he felt wasn't Katya's fangs sinking into his neck, but the cool breeze of her exhausted yawn. He chuckled as he felt the being he loved fall limp in his arms. "I guess you're too tired even for this tonight, huh?"

Katya nuzzled a nod into Mark's neck. "Rough day."

Mark stood up and pushed the chair back away with his foot, letting Katya remain in place as he cradled her in his arms. "C'mon honey, let's get you into bed so you can get some sleep."

#

**_A/N: There might be one more chapter today, depending on how fast I can write it. Meredith's little surprise made this one longer than I thought, so I'm breaking it into two. We haven't seen anything from Katya's past in a few chapters, so my girl need to dream some more...:)_**

**_Honestly, all I'm wishing for right now are more comments from you guys. ;-) Would you guys be okay with me pulling more from Katya's life? Are you happy with the balance of Katya to the other characters in the story? I'm trying to put in enough plot for the other characters to keep you guys happy while I work on Katya. It would really help me to know if you're enjoying this as it's going (thank you, red, for all your notes saying *exactly* that), or if there's something you wish I was doing that I haven't been. You all know I listen closely to what you guys tell me. If I didn't, I'd be writing that Dresden Files crossover right now instead of this story. So don't be afraid to speak up!_**


	6. Chapter 6

Castle returned to the loft fifteen minutes later to find a plate of food waiting for him on the kitchen island...along with a glass of scotch. He brought his dinner to the living room, warming up the plate and the food as he walked. "Thanks," he greeted his waiting fiancée as he sat down.

"No problem," shrugged Beckett.

Castle immediately noticed how distracted Beckett appeared. He set his food down on the coffee table and moved so he could gently caress her arm...which would, hopefully, direct more of her attention toward *him*. "Kate?" he asked quietly. "What is it?"

Beckett never turned her gaze away from the fire crackling in the fireplace. "How is Meredith?" she asked.

Castle suspected that was a loaded question. "She's all set," he replied. "The Lucerne now has full custody of my Platinum card, so hopefully Meredith will have absolutely no reason to come back here for the rest of her trip."

"Somehow I doubt it," sighed Beckett. A tense silence hung in the air as she took another sip of her wine. "Why is she still in our lives, Rick?"

"She's Alexis' mother..." Castle shrugged, as if that explanation should qualify as the end of the discussion.

It wasn't. "Alexis is in *college*. She's a full-grown adult, which means that the next time you have to talk to Meredith again is when Alexis gets married..."

"Which, hopefully, won't be any time in the near future," Castle countered with a fatherly shudder.

Beckett was determined to make her point. "So then why do you still want to keep a relationship with her?"

Castle opened his mouth to protest, then closed it quickly when he realized that Beckett had a point. "I don't know," he shrugged, sighing wearily.

"Do you still love her?" asked Beckett.

"God, no!" Castle exclaimed.

His almost instinctual reaction seemed to placate Beckett somewhat. It also brought her first question back to the forefront of the discussion. "So then why is she still in our lives, Rick?"

Castle settled back into the couch, swirled his glass of scotch, and downed the drink in one long swallow. Wincing as the liquid burned its way down his thoat and warmed him from his core, he saw that Beckett was still waiting patiently for his answer. "I don't know," he finally admitted with another sigh. "I guess...I guess I've just never gotten up the nerve to tell her it was over."

"And yet you divorced her," countered Beckett.

"*She* divorced me," Castle corrected immediately. "After having an affair with one of her producers."

Beckett's eyes went wide. "She cheated on you?"

"She didn't tell you *that*, did she?" Castle answered Beckett matter-of-factly...until he noticed the expression on her face. "What *did* she tell you?"

Beckett sipped her glass of wine, taking a minute to word her response before speaking. "She said...she said that while you knew everything about her, she knew next-to-nothing about you. And that finally got her so frustrated that she left."

Castle raised an eyebrow, clearly surprised at Beckett's reaction. "And you *bought* that?" Castle's eyes widened further when Beckett nodded. "Think about it, Kate. You've read *all* my books. Was a single one dedicated to Meredith?"

Beckett shook her head. "Actually, no..."

Castle pushed further. "Have I written a character that even remotely resembled Meredith?"

"If you did, it was a minor one," Beckett agreed, slowly catching on to what Castle was trying to tell her. "But Derrick Storm is nothing like her."

"*Clearly*," insisted Castle. Still, he had one final point he knew he needed Beckett to understand. "Kate, *think* about who Meredith is and the subtext of what she told you. Who do those words best apply to: you or her?"

Beckett sighed as Castle's point finally pierced her heart. "Me."

"Exactly. Kate, I met Meredith on the rebound from Kira. I married her only when I found out she was pregnant and insisted on keeping the baby. Once she had Alexis, though, Meredith realized that being a mom kept her from being the one thing that she loves being more than anything else."

"An actress?"

Castle shook his head. "The center of attention. And as soon as she was able to find a way to become the center of someone *else's* world, she left me."

Beckett was finally starting to understand the dynamics of Castle's first marriage. "That's why she's trying to hang on you like a bad rash. It bugs her that she's not the center of your world anymore."

"I think it's bruised her pride," Castle agreed.

"Kinda like how Natalie Rhodes was so shocked that you told her no?"

Castle nodded. "You'd be amazed how many actresses are like that."

"Probably." Beckett took another sip of her wine as her mind processed what she had learned over the course of their conversation. "What about Gina? Was it like that with her?"

Castle shook his head. "I was a single parent who worked from home. You get really lonely in a situation like that. Gina was one of the few women I saw on a regular basis that knew me for me, not as Richard Castle, the photo op setup. I guess...I guess I wanted someone to take care of me so I could take care of Alexis. And with Gina already doing that job for me in my professional life..."

"You figured she could do it in your personal life, as well?"

"Yeah," Castle shrugged, almost ashamed at the immaturity of his past thinking.

"You know that's a lousy way to look at marriage, right?"

On that point, Castle was in full agreement. "Why do you think we're divorced?"

"True." Beckett finally found herself unable to look in the eyes of her fiancé as she pondered the one last question that she knew she had to ask. "And what about us, Rick?"

Castle reached through the depths of his soul and flung open the connection he shared with Beckett, baring his soul to her in a way that he knew no one else would ever be able to experience and only one other couple could ever come close to being able to understand. He took Beckett's wine glass out of her hand, set it on the coffee table next to his untouched food and pulled her closer to him. "Kate...I have *never* had a relationship like this. Not with Kira. Not with *anyone*. I waited for you for *four* years before you ever noticed me as anything more than your partner. And even *that* was a title I had to fight for almost two years to get. *You* are the only woman I want in my life. And if I have to fight for this relationship every single day for the rest of eternity then I'm more than willing to do it. You may not have been my only one, Katherine Beckett, but after you I am most *definitely* done."

Beckett wiped tears away from her eyes as the powerful emotions that flooded her soul were matched, heart to heart, by the ones she was feeling from her soulmate. "You're *that* sure about us?"

As Rick pulled Kate in to give her what would be the first of hundreds of kisses that evening, only one word was left in his mind. The only word that he could ever possibly deem to be a suitable answer to her question.

_Always_.

#

_Katya kept a brisk pace as she walked around the edges of the camp, not wanting any of her relatives to see her with the pitcher of lamb's blood that she was carrying. What the traveler was doing with all of this blood, she had no idea. But since Father had insisted she do whatever the traveler asked of her without question, she was bound and determined to do so._

_Even if that meant getting the man a pitcher of lamb's blood in the middle of the night._

_She heard a group of young mens' voices coming from the tents to her right and quickened her pace. Katya recognized the voices of Ivan and Andrei immediately; she also recognized that all the men were *very* drunk...which was never a good sign. One thought went through her mind: a worry born from years of previous experience. "Please," Katya 'prayed' in a quiet, terrified whisper, "please don't look this way. Please don't look this way..."_

_Fate was not on Katya's side that day. "Look who we have here," Ivan announced to the group, "if it isn't Katya, our useless excuse for a sister..." Murmurs of "useless", "worthless", and "waste of air" rumbled through the group._

_Andrei circled around and pushed her from behind, nearly knocking the blood out of her hands. "Look at her," he exclaimed, "she looks so much like a boy that father couldn't find *anyone* willing to take her as a wife."_

_"Maybe he should have looked for a *wife* for her instead," Boris taunted her._

_"Nah," Ivan countered, looking to heighten the intensity of their ridicule, "that would be a waste of a dowry. He should have sold her off to those arab slave traders..."_

_Andrei shook his head. "The traders wouldn't have wanted her. It would cost them more to get her to the auction than she's worth."_

_Boris sniffed the air, suspicious of the odd smell that was starting to bother him. "Do you smell that, brothers?" he asked the group._

_"I wonder how you can smell anything with all of that vodka on your breath," Katya grumbled._

_The comment earned Katya a punch in the stomach; she collapsed to the ground, doubled over in pain from the blow. The pitcher fell to the ground beside her, spilling its contents on the ground beside her and causing the brothers to recoil from the scene in disgust. "Is that...blood?" Ivan exclaimed._

_Boris nodded. "I *knew* I smelled something bad..."_

_Andrei ignored his brother's comment, choosing to keep his focus on the target of their wrath. "What are you doing with that blood, Katya?" he asked her._

_Ivan didn't give her the chance to answer. "Are you wishing you could *bleed*, Katya?"_

_Boris was annoyed that his brothers were ignoring him...and he was determined to take that annoyance out on Katya. "Well, why don't we make her *bleed*, then..."_

_His brothers responded enthusiastically to the idea. Andrei knelt down and forcibly shoved Katya's face in the rapidly drying puddle of blood. "You want blood so bad," he growled, "you shall have it..."_

_"Release her. Now."_

_The brothers looked up to find the traveler standing behind them. "This doesn't concern you, stranger," Ivan called back to him. "We're just having some fun with our sister. Go back to bed."_

_"Fun?" the traveler repeated, rolling the word around like he was carefully considering the concept. He approached the brothers casually. "You think this is fun?"_

_The four young men nodded. "Do you want a turn?" asked Andrei, remembering a small shred of manners._

_"Do I want a turn," the traveler repeated in a low grumble. "No, I do *not* want a turn. I want you to return my servant to me. Now."_

_The four brothers' alcohol-infused bravado quickly overrode their good judgement. "Really?" asked Boris. "Why don't you come and take her from us?"_

_"Gladly," the traveler replied._

_The four brothers rushed the traveler, figuring him for an easy target. They couldn't have been more wrong. The traveler countered every one of their sloppy punches with superhuman speed. Boris and Andrei ended up punching each other, knocking each other out simultaneously. The silent Nikola watched his brothers go down and ran away in a panic...leaving Ivan to face the traveler alone. He tried to throw a couple more punches, but the traveler dodged them effortlessly and trapped him from behind. "You want to make her bleed?" the traveler growled angrily, "Maybe I should make *you* bleed..."_

_Katya watched in horror as the traveler opened his mouth wide enough to reveal a startling set of fangs. Fangs that proved to Katya, beyond all doubt, that the 'man' she had been serving was, indeed, not human. She screamed, expressing every ounce of the terror that she was feeling through the deafening sound. It also got the traveler's attention...which Katya took full advantage of. "Please, sir," she begged the traveler, her voice trembling with fear for her brother's fate, "please, please just let him go..."_

_"Why should I," the traveler asked Katya. He pulled on Ivan's neck, contorting its angle to the limits of what a human could possibly stand. "Why should I let him live when he will simply retalliate and move to hurt you even more the instant that my back is turned?"_

_"Please," Katya begged, "he is still my brother. Please, please, just let him live. Please..."_

_The traveler was deeply moved by Katya's mercy and compassion in the face of her brothers' cruelty. He let go of Ivan's head and spun him around so that the two men were forced to confront each other face to face. "You will remember nothing of what happened this evening. You've had too much vodka."_

_"I have had too much vodka," Ivan repeated blankly._

_"When your brothers try to remind you of this night," the traveler continued, "you will convince anyone who is listening that your brothers have lost their minds."_

_"Lost their minds," Ivan repeated._

_The traveler then put his hand behind Ivan's head and violently pulled it back by the hair so that he had complete control over the movements of the head in his hands. He leaned in close enough that Ivan could feel the traveler's cold breath against his face. "And if *anyone* lays a hand on Katya in your presence, you will defend her honor even if it costs you your very life." The traveler yanked on Ivan's hair, causing the man to yelp in pain as his neck snapped back at an unnatural angle. "Do you understand?"_

_"Defend her with my life," Ivan repeated, the only emotion in his voice coming from the involuntary stress of pain. "I will defend her honor with my life."_

_Satisfied, the traveler released his hold on Ivan's body. "Go back to your tent," he told Ivan. "Sleep until sunset tomorrow." Ivan turned around and walked slowly away, yawning periodically as he went. The traveler then turned around, assuming he was going to have to repeat the hypnotic process on the shell-shocked girl._

_To his surprise, though, Katya seemed to have already composed herself, and was sitting in the dirt, trying and failing to wipe the drying blood off her face. She looked up at the traveler, her expression showing all the fear he had expected, but also gratefulness and a worshipful humility. "Thank you," Katya whispered quietly. "For letting him live."_

_"You are welcome," said the traveler, his heart melting at her words. He picked up Katya with ease, like she weighed almost nothing._

_A heartbeat later the pair were at the stream outside the cooking tent. The traveler knelt down and laid Katya in the cool, clear water, pushing the water around her with his free hand in order to get the caked-on mix of dirt and dried blood off of her shaking form._

_Katya was too weak and overwhelmed to protest the traveler's attentions. Bigger questions were consuming the last of her thoughts. "What are you?" she asked. "Are you Upir?"_

_"No," the traveler replied, "I am not Upir. Although I do share some traits with those beings in your legends."_

_"Then what are you?" asked Katya, a burst of adrenaline giving her the energy to push the issue. "You are not human, that much is quite clear..."_

_The traveler rubbed the last of the blood off of Katya's face. This gave him the time to study her expression. It was quickly becoming clear to him that she was not going to rest until she got the answers she was seeking. "My name is Drusus Claudius, child. I am two thousand years old, and I am vampyr."_

Katya awoke with a start...and immediately doubled over in pain. Five hundred year old muscle cramps quickly made themselves known, causing her to roll out of bed and collapse on the floor. This wasn't just cold feet. It couldn't be.

But then what was it?

#

**_A/N: Yep, two chapters in a day. Nice to get a little more of Katya's past down on paper. And as for the Caskett conversation...I feel like I need to clarify something. With the season 6 premiere looming large on next month's schedule, we're at a point where this is becoming a fully alternate universe: the show's canon and this universe's canon have split in two very different directions. _**

**_I feel like now might be the right time to declare exactly where the show and I have split permanently from each other. While I have cherry-picked a handful of details from the first half of season five and incorporated them into this universe (Meredith's last conversation with Beckett, for example), I am cutting off my adoption of show cannon exactly halfway through my favorite episode of season five, "The Wild Rover". In other words, Ryan did go undercover with the mob in Staten Island, but he and Jenny do *not* get pregnant until they find out about Alexis at the end of "Four Winds". And everything after that just didn't happen in this universe. That includes "Watershed". ;-)_**

**_If anyone has any questions about this, or anything else (or comments, or snide remarks, for that matter), then just post 'em down below. :)_**


	7. Chapter 7

_**A/N: I swear, this chapter wasn't originally supposed to go the way it went. I was originally going to write a paragraph or two of internal Katya angst before she went to meet up with the Guardians to discuss the case. But then it just went in a totally different direction...this is a completely original chapter. First one I've done in a long time, actually. :-) But with no Castle characters in this chapter, I won't be at all disappointed if you decide to skip this chapter. The next one will be up tomorrow, I promise!**_

#

Katya winced as the brightness of the mid-day sun beat down on her mercilessly. Her mind idly recalled a cereal bar commercial she had seen where a human-stereotypical vampire 'family' suddenly started to love mornings because they discovered the right breakfast. "If only it were that simple..." she sighed.

A car honked as it sped across her path, missing her by just inches. While the loud noise temporarily caught her attention, once she was safely across the street, her thoughts returned to problem she had been obsessing over since the had returned to the waking world: her dreams. Why she had started dreaming again. And why her physical pains from the dream world were bleeding over into her body in the *real* world. Her friends had tried to help and, to a degree, their explanation made some sense.

Until this morning. Katya gently rubbed her abdominal muscles, hoping that the self-massage would ease her discomfort even though the morning's experience was more than enough proof that the massage was an exercise in futility. If these were *just* dreams then she knew she would have been far more willing to accept her beloved's explanation that she was suffering from 'cold feet'. But the pain...and it was getting worse.

She needed help. She knew it. And since her friends were unable to help her...there was only one place she could go to get answers.

She hoped.

Katya turned the corner and disappeared down the alley she was looking for. Once the buildings rose to a height where they blocked out the sun, she knew she had reached her destination. She knocked three times on the reinforced steel door.

A rectangular window opened from the opposite side of the door. "Who is it?"

"I request an audience with Monsieur des Beauxartistes."

The vampire on the other side of the door hesitated before responding. "He's unavailable. Come back tonight."

Katya rolled her eyes, annoyed that she was going to have to be the one to educate an obvious newborn. "You're lying."

"How would *you* know that I'm lying?" the gruff voice spat back at her.

"Because my old friend is no fool, child." The third voice that entered the conversation seemed to share Katya's rapidly diminishing patience. "Please allow the daywalker to enter, Christopher. And for God's sake, don't get too close to the light you let in..."

The thick door opened slowly. "Please, friend, enter," the elder told Katya, allowing her to cross the threshold. "To what do I owe the pleasure of this visit?"

Katya kissed her old friend on both cheeks as his newborn carefully shut the door behind her. "Can I not just visit an old friend?"

The elder chuckled at Katya's coy counter-question. "Not in the middle of the day," he replied. The elder then turned back to the young vampire in their presence. "Christopher, we will be retiring to the parlor. Please bring us two glasses of blood, and pour one for yourself as well."

"Do you have a preference, my sire?" asked Christopher.

The elder didn't respond to the question; instead, he turned to Katya. "My darling, we have lamb, pig, cow, elephant...and a very interesting blend of African lion blood. I've heard it's quite rare. Anyway, which would you prefer?"

"The lion's blood sounds lovely," Katya replied.

The elder turned back to his child. "Two of the lion's blood, Christopher. And you are welcome to partake as well...since this is such a special occasion."

The young vampire's eyes lit up as he bowed deeply to signal his exit. "Thank you, my sire," he exclaimed before turning and heading back toward the kitchen.

Katya and the elder turned and strolled in the opposite direction. "Special occasion?"

"Well, it's not often I have the opportunity to entertain such an esteemed guest," the elder replied. "After all, when is the last time I have had the pleasure of your company?"

"It has been a while," Katya admitted.

The elder opened the door to the ornate, windowless parlor and allowed Katya to enter the room first. As Katya took a seat next to the crackling fire in the fireplace, the elder sat down in a similar chair beside her. "I have actually heard a rumor that you are preparing to marry a *human*," the elder commented casually as they watched the flames dance safely in front of them. "Is that true?"

"To a degree," Katya replied, not wanting to give up anymore information than she had to.

"You are not marrying one of your Guardians, then?" the elder asked, wondering where the discrepancy lay between the truth and the rumors he had been hearing. When Katya shook her head, though, the elder recognized what his friend was *not* telling him. "Ah. So a human who shares a blessing similar to your own, then?"

Katya nodded, hoping that she was admitting only what she had to to get past the topic. "My husband-to-be is a lovely man..."

"And a very lucky one," the elder chimed in as Christopher entered the room carrying a tray with three wine goblets of lion's blood. The elder took a goblet for himself and silently motioned for the younger vampire to serve their guest. He then raised his glass to lead all three vampires in a toast. "To my darling Ekaterina...may your future bring you all the joy and peace that you deserve."

"Here, here," Christopher agreed.

"Thank you, old friend," said Katya as the three vampires clinked their glasses together.

The three vampires sipped from their glasses only briefly before the elder spoke again. "Now, my child, since you are clearly not here to talk about your upcoming nuptials, why have you decided to grace us with your presence?"

Katya took another sip of blood to give herself time to collect her thoughts. "Michel...I have been having some rather disturbing experiences lately. I am hoping that, in your great wisdom..."

Michel chuckled as he finally started to understand what Katya was looking for. "You are hoping that I might have experienced something similar to what is troubling you because I have, as the human expression goes, been around the block a few times?" Katya nodded. "Then tell me your troubles, old friend. I will help if I can."

"I...I have started dreaming again," Katya admitted.

The elder hit his surprise by taking a sip from his goblet. "Dreaming?"

"Why is that an issue?" asked Christopher.

"When you have lived as long as we have," the elder explained patiently, "dreams only keep you from resting properly. I haven't had a good dream in centuries..."

The timeframe of Michel's answer surprised Katya. "Centuries? So you *have* dreamt..."

Michel nodded. "It does happen, rarely. Usually when I'm facing a great challenge. Dreams are often a source of great inspiration, even for our kind. If we can't work out our issues in our waking mind, sometimes a good dream will be the inspiration for the solution."

Katya took a sip from her goblet as she considered Michel's words. "That's similar to what my friends said when I told them about it..."

"Your Guardians?" Michel asked, seeking clarification. Katya nodded. "You have wise friends, then," said the elder. "What are you dreaming about?"

"My human life," replied Katya. "Before I was turned."

Michel raised an eyebrow at that. "That was quite some time ago..." He considered that information in the context of what he knew of Katya's past. "Perhaps we are discussing your nuptials, after all? Your turning was very intricately tied into running away from a marriage prison, was it not?"

"It was," Katya agreed.

"So are you, perhaps, reliving this time because you feel some hesitancy in choosing to marry now?"

"You believe that I may have 'cold feet', as the human expression goes?" The elder nodded, so Katya added the one detail her explanation had been missing. "I might be inclined to agree with you were it not for an...additional problem."

Christopher gawked shamelessly as Katya hiked up her shirt, revealing a pattern of angry bruises across her abdomen. "My sire," he exclaimed, "I thought that it wasn't possible for one of our kind to be injured like this..."

"It isn't," Michel agreed, "or at least...I *once* believed that this was not possible. How did this happen to you, mon petit chat?"

"I woke up with these injuries after my last dream," Katya replied.

"Christopher, chèr," Michel asked his young protègé without taking his eyes off of Katya's injuries, "there's a bag of AB-negative in the..." The newborn returned with the bag of blood before the elder could finish the sentence. The elder then carefully ripped open the top of the bag and handed it to Katya. "Drink up, my dear."

Katya took the bag from Michel's hands and drained it in one long swallow. "Now...may I see?" Michel asked gently. Katya lifted her shirt without protest, knowing what her friend wanted to see...and sharing his disappointment as his face fell. "No change," he gasped, clearly shocked by his lack of results.

"So far the injuries have resisted blood healing. They have only ever healed within a human's timeframe..."

"How many times has this happened to you, chèrie?" asked Michel.

"Twice," replied Katya. She noticed how the disappointment on her old friend's face seemed to be matching the emotions that pierced her heart. "I take it you have never seen anything like this before, either?"

Michel shook his head. "I am sorry to say I have not, petit chat." He tugged on Katya's shirt, encouraging her to pull it back down to cover her injuries. "In my human days my people would have believed you to be cursed..."

"I'm starting to believe that might be a possibility," Katya grumbled with a weary sigh.

The elder continued on, consciously ignoring Katya's comment. "But in these times...I simply cannot say with any certainty what this might be."

"Maybe she *is* cursed," Christopher commented.

Michel hissed at his newborn, furious that the young vampire would be insensitive enough to make such a statement.

Katya, for her part, was unfazed by Christopher's comments. "Thank you for seeing me at this late hour, old friend," she told Michel with another weary sigh.

"Anything for you, my dear," agreed Michel as he walked Katya to his front door. The two vampires embraced, preparing to say goodbye to one another. "Would you do me a favor, Ekaterina?" asked the elder.

"Of course," Katya replied, surprised that her friend felt the need to ask the question.

"When you find out what is behind all of this...will you come back and tell me the story?"

Katya smiled warmly, knowing exactly what her old friend was *actually* asking her to do. "I promise, Michel. When I know the whole story, I will come over and tell it to you over another glass of that lion's blood. Agreed?"

"Agreed," said the elder. He stepped back to get away from the sunlight that he knew was going to pour into the room when his friend left. "May the gods watch over you, mon petit chat," Michel whispered as he walked to his bedroom. "I suspect you are going to need all the help that you can get."

#

**_If you've gotten this far, thanks for reading! :-D And good, bad, or otherwise, I would love to hear what you think!_**


	8. Chapter 8

_**A/N: A big shoutout to the wonderful baysideangl who left me the loveliest comments about the last chapter. Want a shoutout? You know what to do...**_

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Castle put a cup of freshly made coffee on his partner's desk as he watched Beckett move around the murder board/wall, adding the new information that they had received from their dinner with Michelle the previous night. The look in his eyes made it clear that he wasn't paying a whole lot of attention to *what* his partner was writing.

Beckett caught the edges of Castle's thoughts running through her mind, and wheeled around to stare down her partner. "Castle!" she exclaimed, gritting through clenched teeth as Ryan and Esposito came in for their meeting. "Focus, please..."

"Sorry!" Castle threw up his hands in surrender, knowing he had been caught. The rest of his expression, however, was shamelessly unapologetic.

Beckett smirked an expression of forgiveness before turning her focus to the rest of her team. "Okay, what do we got?"

Ryan spoke up first. "I checked all the ICU wards in the city. No Haitians or patients of Haitian nationality in any of 'em right now."

"What about Nigerians?" asked Castle. "A practitioner with enough experience would know about the traditions of both cuitures..."

Ryan cut him off. "I checked. Dead end there, too."

"Let's add hospices and nursing homes to the search," Beckett suggested. "Maybe our killer's family member has been moved to a long-term care facility..."

"I had the same thought," Esposito volunteered after hanging up the phone. "I just got off the phone with a nursing home in Brooklyn. They just got a little girl transferred to them from Long Island College Hospital. I think her family might fit our profile."

"How so?" asked Beckett.

Esposito grabbed a piece of paper from his desk so he could refer to his notes. "The little girl, Camille Jean-Louis, was brought in on an angel flight from Port-au-Prince about two months ago. She was coming to get surgery for a congenital heart defect. Poor kid's only four..."

"What happened?" asked Ryan, his heart already starting to break in sympathy for the family's plight. "Why's she been moved to the nursing home?"

"The surgery went sideways," Esposito replied. "Camille never woke up from the anesthesia."

"So she's in a coma?" asked Beckett.

Esposito nodded. "Catastrophic brain damage. If things don't improve significantly and fast, the doctors are going to recommend pulling the plug on her next week."

"Jesus," exclaimed Castle. "I wouldn't want to be her parents right now..."

"There's more, though," added Esposito. "The nurse I talked to said that Camille's father has plastered the room with images of a strange symbol she didn't recognize. When she asked him about it, he said he was trying to convince some god not to dig his daughter's grave..."

The group recognized the symbolism immediately. "Baron Samedi," said Castle, giving voice to the name they were all thinking of.

"Okay, you guys go pay a visit to this nursing home," Beckett told her teammates. "Let's see if Camille's dad can account for his whereabouts on the days our sacrifices were performed. Castle and I will go to the hospital and get the other side of the story from the staff there."

Ryan and Esposito were already preparing to head out. "On it."

#

"Thank you for coming, Lanie," said Ryan.

The healer shrugged off the gratitude as they headed toward the front doors of the nursing home. "After you boys told me about this little girl...I had to see if I could help."

Esposito squeezed his wife's hand in a brief show of support. "I know you will."

The trio then stepped on the mat that opened the nursing home's automatic door. "Agents Ryan, Esposito and Esposito, Homeland Security," Esposito announced to the security guard at the front desk. "What room is Camille Jean-Louis in?"

The security guard's defenses went up immediately. "What the hell does Homeland Security want with a little kid in a coma?"

Ryan and Lanie both quickly worked to calm the security guard. "This is just a routine follow-up to the emergency medical visa, nothing more," Lanie replied in a voice she hoped was as gentle and soothing as possible. "Now if you could just point us in the right direction..."

The security guard drew in a deep breath and let it out slowly, as if he was unknowingly trying to inhale the peaceful energy that Ryan was surrounding him with. He then handed the group three visitor's passes. "Room 163," he instructed them. "Go all the way to the end of the hall and make a left. The nurses at the station will help you from there."

"Thank you," said Ryan.

The three Guardians followed the guard's instructions and were at the nurse's station in a matter of minutes. The nurse at the desk noticed the group's presence but refused to look up from the chart she was working on. "Can I help you?" she asked, as if it was the twentieth time she had been asked the question already that day.

"We're here to see Camille Jean-Louis," Ryan replied.

The little girl's name immediately caught not only the nurse's attention, but also the attention of the doctor and nurse who were talking at the other end of the desk. "And you are...?" asked the nurse, clearly wary of the strangers that now held her complete attention.

The Guardians, in turn, produced their identification. "Agents Kevin Ryan, Javier Esposito, and Dr. Lanie Parish-Esposito," Ryan replied to the nurse's question, "we're here to follow up on the girl's emergency medical visa."

"I'll take them to her, Sharon," the doctor chimed in, his conversation with the other nurse apparently completed. "Thanks."

Her potential objections placated, Sharon returned her attention back to her writing. The doctor crossed the length of the station to shake the hands of the Guardians. The excitement in his voice was surprisingly palpable. "I'm Dr. Rispolo," he greeted Ryan, who shook the doctor's hand first, "it's such an honor to actually meet you in person..."

_I think he might know who we are,_ Ryan 'told' the group through their mind-link.

Esposito had to resist the urge to roll his eyes. _Gee, ya think?_

Lanie ignored the comments running through her mind, choosing instead to focus on the other doctor and their patient. "What happened to her, Doctor Rispolo?"

The doctor's face fell as his focus went from his visitors back to his patient. "Her father performed some sort of ritual on her the night before she went in for the surgery," he told the group. "Apparently, he gave her wine as part of the ritual and we didn't know about it."

Lanie understood the consequences immediately. "She aspirated on it, didn't she?"

Rispolo nodded. "The anesthesiologist didn't catch the problem in time, and Camille's lungs collapsed. The lack of oxygen to her brain is why she's here now."

"We'd like to talk to her parents," Ryan told the doctor.

"Of course," the doctor readily agreed. "Although it's just her and her father here in New York. Apparently Camille has four brothers and sisters back in Haiti." Rispolo then turned his attention back to Lanie...and found himself suddenly hesitant to speak. "Doctor Esposito, do you need to be a part of that interview?"

Lanie caught on to what Rispolo was really trying to ask her. "Actually...I was hoping I could get a chance to examine Camille while my partners talked to her father, if you don't mind..."

The doctor's face lit up so quickly it was like the Guardians could see his heart soar. "You have no idea how much I was hoping you'd say that, Doctor Esposito. After you."

Lanie turned into the small private room to see a tiny-looking little girl resting in the bed, hooked up to an overwhelming amount of machines that made her look even smaller in comparison. Her father never moved from his daughter's side, holding onto her frail hand like it was the most precious thing in his world. And around them...around them the walls had been papered in thousands of copies of a symbol that Esposito immediately recognized as the veve of Baron Samedi.

Rispolo decided to be the one to break the silence. "Mr. Jean-Louis?" he asked, trying to get the father's attention. "This is Doctor Parish-Esposito. I've brought her in to...consult on your daughter's case."

The father frowned in confusion as he stood up without letting go of his daughter's hand. "I don't understand. I thought that there was nothing more anyone could do pour ma Camille..."

The doctor's eyes never left Lanie as he responded to the already grieving father. "I sincerely hope that I was wrong about that, Mr. Jean-Louis." Rispolo then turned his attention to the request that the Guardians had directly asked of him. "Also, these men have asked to speak with you. With your permission, I'd like to have Doctor Esposito examine your daughter while the three of you talk in the waiting room?"

The slightly confused father nodded without thinking. "Of course, of course," he agreed, letting Ryan and Esposito lead him out of his daughter's room.

Once the two doctors were alone with their patient, Rispolo gave up any semblance of control of the situation. "Just tell me what you need me to do," he told Lanie.

"Make sure no one interrupts me for the next few minutes," Lanie replied.

"Got it. Anything else?"

Lanie graced the other doctor with a serene, knowing smile. "Just be ready to take out the breathing tube when I tell you."

#

The elder Jean-Louis was clearly distracted as he led Ryan and Esposito to the waiting room. Ryan poured his energy into the room as he walked into it, trying to do what he could to make the situation easier on the worried father. "Mr. Jean-Louis..." he began as they sat down.

"Please, call me Stephane," Jean-Louis countered.

"All right," agreed Ryan, "Stephane, I'm Agent Ryan, and this is my partner, Agent Esposito. We're with Homeland Security."

Stephane's eyes went wide as he recognized the name of the organization. "Homeland Security? Why in the world..."

"We're following up on your daughter's medical visa," Ryan cut the man off in an attempt to reassure him, "it's just routine."

The comments seemed to reassure Stephane...but only slightly. "I see," he said with a nod, trying to will himself to relax.

"I couldn't help but notice that symbol around your daughter's room," Esposito commented, trying to gently steer the conversation toward the *real* reason they were there, "is it some sort of...good luck charm?"

Stephane shook his head. "It is the veve of Baron Samedi. In my culture, Baron Samedi holds the keys to life and death."

"I see," Ryan nodded in understanding, trying not to show that he was already familiar with the name. "Does displaying the symbol help?"

"In my culture," Stephane explained patiently, "if you call on the name of Baron Samedi, he can be convinced to heal someone who is...who is..."

Ryan continued his questioning so Stephane didn't have to finish the sentence. "Is that all you have to do to contact Baron Samedi? Just...display his veve?"

Stephane studied the two men warily, wondering where their line of questioning was headed. "There's...a chant that I use to call on him," he replied, watching Ryan and Esposito carefully to gauge their reactions.

Beckett's mind-voice rang through the minds of her partners. _Guys, we've just left the hospital. The ICU staff doesn't remember seeing Jean-Louis at the hospital during *any* of our time of death windows. It stuck out to them because the rest of the time he had to be pulled away from his daughter's side._

_Got it,_ Esposito replied, _thanks guys._

Ryan took Beckett's information into consideration when he formulated his next question. "Is that it?" he asked, deliberately prodding Stephane to see his reaction. "Put up his picture, say a chant and he'll answer?"

"That's it," Stephane insisted, frowning in confusion. "Look, why is Homeland Security coming to *me* to ask about my religious beliefs..."

"Where were you last night at 5pm?" Esposito pushed, getting to the point of their meeting.

Stephane's face paled. "There's...there's a bar around the corner from the hospital, a friend of my cousin's runs it. I go there to get a few drinks when being around Camille gets too hard sometimes...what are you accusing me of?!"

"We are investigating three murders," Ryan explained. "We believe that the person responsible is killing in the name of Baron Samedi."

Shock and anger were rolling off Stephane in waves as he stood up in protest. "And you think I could have done such horrible things?"

"It's very clear how much you love your daughter," Ryan replied. "And if someone who loved their daughter as much as you do believed that they needed to kill if it would keep their daughter alive..."

"Do you have children, Agent Ryan?"

Ryan nodded. "A daughter, and a second child on the way."

"Then you know how precious that little girl's life is to you. And how precious my little girl's life is to me. And how precious *every* second of life is. *Nothing* teaches you that more than seeing your little girl lying in that bed, with almost no chance of ever waking up ever again. I couldn't put another family through that pain, Agent Ryan. No way."

"Even if it allowed you to keep your daughter alive in exchange?" asked Esposito.

Stephane collapsed back into one of the waiting room chairs, grief weighing his heart down once again. "My daughter is dying, Agent Esposito. If I had killed to keep her alive, it would have been in vain. So if I had done the terrible things you have accused me of doing, I would be begging you to let me sign a confession."

"So you could pay for your crimes?" asked Esposito.

"So I could join my daughter in death," Stephane insisted bitterly. "Sooner rather than later."

_We're done in here,_ Lanie announced to the two men through the mind-link. _Is he our guy?_

_I don't think so, _Esposito replied. _Just need to verify his alibi._

_Well hurry up,_ Lanie teased. _Camille is looking for her daddy..._

Esposito had to resist the strong urge to chuckle at the thoughts running through his mind, choosing instead to stand up and effectively end the interview. "I'm sure you understand that we'll need to verify your alibi with the bar?" he asked, offering his hand to the grieving father.

Stephane nodded as he graciously shook Esposito's hand. "I'll ask one of the nurses to get us a pen and paper..."

"That won't be necessary," Esposito replied, earning a frown from Stephane in response. "Go back to your daughter," Esposito told the other man. "We'll come back if we need to talk to you again."

Now thoroughly confused, Stephane left the waiting room, absentmindedly passing Lanie as he went by without recognizing her. _Any problems?_ Ryan asked Lanie through the mind-link once she entered the waiting room.

_Nah_, Lanie replied casually, _she needed a lot of help, but I've had to heal worse on Javi..._

_Hey! _Esposito teased in mock protest.

Lanie was unfazed. _It's true and you know it..._

All conversation ceased when the cry of a little girl was heard in the distance. "Papa!" the girl squealed, clearly delighted to see her father again.

"That's Camille, right?" Esposito asked his wife in a quiet whisper.

Lanie nodded, her eyes wet with unshed tears. "Yeah." Esposito squeezed his wife's hand, hoping the gesture would show his wife how proud he was of her. The smile he got back in response showed that she had, indeed, gotten the message. "C'mon," she nudged, not letting go of her husband's hand as she led him out of the hospital, "now that daddy alibis out, you boys are back at square one..."

Esposito rolled his eyes and groaned. "Way to ruin the moment, chica..."

Around the corner from the waiting room, an overjoyed Stephane Jean-Louis refused to let his little girl out of his arms. That precious bundle, thought, was no deterrent when it came to his current mission. "Ton ange has disappeared, ma Camille," he told his daughter, "I don't see her."

Camille rolled her eyes. "Papaaaa..." she drolled, as if she were the adult who needed to patiently teach the child, "don't you know when a angel's job is done, they go back up to heaven?"

Stephane turned his head left and right, taking one last shot at finding Lanie before considering his daughter's wisdom. "Maybe she has gone back to Heaven, ma Camille," he finally agreed. "Maybe she has at that."


	9. Chapter 9

**_A/N: As promised in the last chapter, shoutouts to phnxgrl and Hawthornbranch, who always leave me the most wonderful comments. Writers, like all creative types, are horribly insecure. Especially considering the off-the-wall subject matter of a story like this one, I'm always worried that you guys will stop reading this story if things get too crazy. So it's *incredibly* reassuring and encouraging when you guys leave comments telling me what you like...and even what you don't. :) Thanks, guys!_**

#

Steve was so surprised by the restaurant's name that he almost spilled his soda. "Really? You guys are going *there* for a bachelorette party?"

Alexis nodded. "Yeah. Apparently the restaurant butchers all its own meat in the back. Dad's springing for us to rent out the back room, hire strippers, the whole thing..."

"So when you ordered a bottle of blood for the bride-to-be...?"

"Didn't phase him in the slightest, believe it or not," Alexis replied with a chuckle. "I think he thinks we're going to use it for some sort of Twilight-themed party. You'd be surprised how many different communities use blood for all sorts of things."

Steve couldn't help but chuckle as he stole a french fry off of his girlfriend's plate. "Yeah, I'll bet..."

A pretty redhead came up to their booth at the coffee shop. Steve took one look at the woman and assumed that she was just coming up to get his autograph. Alexis, though, was shocked that she recognized the woman immediately. "Mom! What...what a surprise...what are you doing here?!"

"Can't a mother just drop in to visit her daughter?" Meredith asked with feigned innocence.

Steve stepped in before Alexis had a chance to answer. "Is this your mother, Alexis?" When Alexis nodded, Steve stood up in an automatic show of respect. "Steve Rogers, ma'am. It's a pleasure to finally meet you."

Meredith looked Steve up and down appreciatively before offering her hand. "It's a pleasure to meet you as well, Steve..." she purred.

Alexis was stunned and embarassed by the way that her mother was trying to flirt with her boyfriend. "You live in LA, mom," she countered, trying to get her mother's attention back on her and away from Steve, "that's an awful long way to travel just to 'drop in'...without calling..."

Steve was fully aware of the way that Meredith was looking at him; he decided to fix the problem by offering her the booth's inside seat.

Meredith took Steve up on his offer and slid into the space next to him. "It's been *months* since I've heard from you, honey," she told Alexis, "I missed you." Meredith then held up her hand to cover her mouth as she mouthed to Alexis, "He's *cute*!" Alexis rolled her eyes, wanting nothing more than for this little threesome to be over.

Steve, though, seemed to be enjoying the opportunity to get to know one of the few members of Alexis' family that he had yet to meet. "I hope you don't mind me saying so," he commented to Meredith, "but you don't look *nearly* old enough to be Alexis' mother."

Meredith blushed. "How sweet of you to say, Steve," she cooed. "How long have you two been seeing each other?"

"Eight months," Steve replied before Alexis had a chance to stop him.

"My my my," Meredith commented, "so I guess this is *serious*, huh?"

It quickly became Alexis' turn to blush, but Steve simply reached across the table and grabbed his girlfriend's hand. "I like to think so," he admitted proudly.

"So I guess you've already met her father, then..." said Meredith.

Steve nodded. "And his fiancée."

Meredith's face flashed an expression of surprise for a split second before she regained her composure. "I guess you guys all get along pretty well, huh?"

"No complaints so far," Steve replied, pulling his hand away from Alexis' to free up the table.

"Why are you *here*, mom?" Alexis asked Meredith, determined to pull her away from her boyfriend. "112th Street is a little uptown from your normal haunts on Fifth Avenue..."

"Actually, I was coming up here to see you," Meredith admitted. "I was hoping that we could spend the afternoon together, you know, go to lunch, go shopping...but since you've already had lunch, maybe we can still go shopping? Hermes is having a great sale..."

Alexis sighed, relieved to hear her mom moving toward far more familiar territory. "All right," she relented, "but I've only got this afternoon. Big party tonight."

"Sounds great to me," Meredith agreed. "Hey, maybe we can find you something *fabulous* to wear to that party..." She watched Alexis say goodbye to her boyfriend and started up some innocuous conversation about Dior's fall collection, but when it came down to it, only one thought was running through Meredith's mind...

_Rick's getting married. To *her*. Something has got to be done about this..._

#

"Explain to me why we're doing this again..." said Katya.

Lanie smiled, then took a long drink from her beer bottle. "It's a tradition, Kat," she explained. "A girls-night-out celebration to allow you to get away from the wedding and enjoy yourself with your friends."

Kayta stared into her glass of blood as she considered the description. "I could certainly stand to have my current thoughts chased out of my head for a while..."

That was all that Jenny needed to hear. "Excellent!" she declared. "Now, I may not be able to drink..."

All conversation stopped as Katya turned to her ex-boyfriend's wife. "You mean..."

Jenny blushed, forgetting how few people actually knew her most recent news. She turned to Katya and nodded. "Yep. Alexis is going to have a little brother or sister in about eight months."

That led to a round of hugs as everyone took the time to get up and congratulate Jenny on her own reason to celebrate before Jenny spoke up again as everyone sat back down. "Now, I may not be able to drink right now," she declared, picking up where she left off, "but I am out of the house on my own for the first time in a *very* long time and I am *definitely* in the mood to celebrate. What's first?"

"Dinner, obviously," Alexis announced to the group. "Anything you want; it's on me...and my dad. After that...there may be a *few* surprises planned..."

A rumble of "Thanks, Alexis," and "Thanks, Crusher" went around the room as the women at the table picked up their menus and started making their decisions about what to have for dinner. Lanie watched, fascinated, as Katya picked up a menu and studied it alongside her fellow party guests. "Wow..." she exclaimed.

Katya noticed the Guardian's eyes watching her. "What is it, honored one?" she asked Lanie without her eyes looking up from the menu.

"I can't believe I've never asked this before...but do vampires eat?" asked Lanie.

Katya smiled, pleased to be able to dispel another mistaken rumor. "Actually, yes. All of my senses are stronger than the average human. Not quite as strong as the Lièrén's, but enough to make eating a truly great pleasure. I do not need food to survive, but I most definitely enjoy it. Especially a good, *rare* steak."

"Because of the blood?" asked Alexis.

Katya nodded. "Absolutely."

Lanie found she only had more questions after she heard Katya's answer to her question. She raised a hand to indicate her intentions. "May I?"

Katya nodded, not needing any explanation to understand what she was being asked. "Of course," she agreed, putting a hand on the table in a spot where Lanie could easily reach it.

Lanie put her hand on top of Katya's, flying through the vampire's body to get the answers to her questions. She was shaking her head in amazement when she finally opened her eyes. "Wow," Lanie exclaimed, "just when I thought I'd seen it all..."

"What did you see?" asked Alexis.

Lanie looked around, remembering where she was and what they were just about to do. "I don't know if this is a good thing to talk about before we're about to eat..."

Alexis waved off the warning. "Lanie, I've worked for you for *how long*? Between you and my dad I can talk about anything at the dinner table and still be hungry. Now what did you see?"

"Well..." Lanie relented, "I was curious about how Katya could digest food, since I've never seen her mention a need to use a bathroom once. You know how a human's stomach uses a mix of acids to digest food?" When Alexis nodded, Lanie continued, "Katya's stomach only has one acid in it. Pure, full strength HCl."

Alexis' eyes went wide. "Hydrochloric Acid? Full strength?"

Lanie nodded. "Yep. The minute a bite of food hits her stomach it just dissolves."

That got Nazia's attention. "So no matter what she eats, she'll never gain an ounce from it?"

Katya replied to Nazia's question with a fang-bearing grin. "One of the few benefits of being what I am..."

"Turn me, just turn me now..." Nazia sighed, eliciting a round of laughter from the women at the table.

"But...it also means that alcohol has no effect on me whatsoever," countered Katya.

"Well, so much for that idea then," said Nazia, canceling out her earlier statement and eliciting another round of laughter from the table.

#

Meredith watched the waiter come back from the private party room, looking for the opportunity to put her plan into action. Once the young man punched the order into the restaurant's computer, she recognized that her opportunity had arrived. "Excuse me," she purred seductively to the waiter, acting as air-headed as everyone always thought she was, "I don't know if you know this, but I'm a sucker for a man in uniform..."

The waiter swallowed the growing lump in his throat, nervously trying to focus on his job and not the beautiful woman rubbing up against him. "Ma'am?" he finally squeaked out.

Satisfied that her character was producing the desired effect, Meredith took things to the next level. "Especially," she whispered, putting her lips as close to the waiter's ear as she could without physically touching the man, "waiter's uniforms."

The waiter pulled at the collar of his shirt, suddenly finding it very hard to breathe. "Really?" he whispered.

Meredith nodded and went in for the kill. "Is there anywhere around here where we can be...alone?"

The waiter furiously scanned the restaurant, looking for a place to take this woman who was throwing herself at him...and praying to any god he could think of to make sure that his managers weren't seeing him. Finally, he decided to head downstairs, figuring the main walk-in was probably the best place for them to go without being disturbed.

Meredith let the waiter lead her downstairs and into the walk-in refrigerator. "Oooh baby, take it off," she purred. "I gotta see what you look like out of that uniform..."

Once the waiter had stripped down to his boxers...she promptly knocked him out with a solid uppercut. Meredith then put on the waiter's uniform and tied back her hair. She smoothed out her curves to perfect the look, satisfied to discover that her retail eye had once again served her well and she had, indeed, knocked out a waiter who was *exactly* her size. "Now," Meredith declared to no one in particular, "let's see what kind of trouble we can get you into, Kate Beckett..."

#

Alexis got the attention of the group again after their drinks were delivered. "When I talked to the manager to book this party," she announced to the group, "he, uh...he 'assumed' that our little get-together was going to be 'Twilight'-themed." Snickers ran through the group, everyone having fairly similar opinions of the movie franchise within the context of what they knew to be the truth...

"He might not be *that* far off..." Alexis grinned mischievously.

The table full of women was suddenly surrounded. By men. Big, burly, traditionally-built strippers, each one covered not in oil, but in the glitter gel that the movie franchise made famous. Alexis pushed a button on a small remote control in her hand, which was the cue for the men to show that they were all wearing cosmetic 'fangs'. The group erupted in laughter, hoots, catcalls and applause as the music began and the strippers began to dance around them.

Alexis had hoped Katya would get a kick out of the half-dozen human men playing with the most sanitized image of what humans thought it meant to be a vampire. At the very least, she had hoped that Katya would find the whole thing to be a bit of innocuous human fun.

But she didn't. Katya quietly sipped her glass of blood as she watched the men gyrate around her friends. Her expression was devoid of anything resembling laughter or joy. Each of the strippers seemed to get Katya's careful consideration, not because of their muscles or the color of their hair or eyes, but out of a need that was far more...primal in nature.

When the first song was finished, it was clear that Katya had made her choice. The man of honor stopped dancing and stood unnaturally still, his expression devoid of all emotion. Katya got up from her 'guest of honor' chair and crossed the room, stalking the man like a lioness would approach a wounded zebra.

With the music stopped, Katya's movements now had the complete attention of everyone in the room. "What's she doing?" Jenny asked Beckett, who was too stunned by what she was watching to respond.

Katya ran a finger around the base of the man's neck as she moved, causing a shiver to run down the spine of every human in the room as they watched. She found a pulse point where the neck and shoulder met in a piece of smooth, glistening muscle. She stopped at that point, licking her lips as desire overwhelmed her.

Finally, in one smooth, supernaturally fast movement, Katya jumped on the man's back, wrapped her legs around the man's waist, and bit down on his neck.

#

From a crack in the barely opened doorway to the private party room, Meredith stared open-mouthed as her daughter's guest of honor bit down on the neck of a stripper and started to, apparently, suck on his blood. And neither Kate Beckett nor her daughter did anything to stop her. _My God, _Meredith thought, horrified, _who are these people and what have they done to my daughter..._


	10. Chapter 10

The roomful of women was stunned only for the briefest of moments before they sprang into action. Beckett wrapped one arm around Katya's waist and put her other hand on the vampire's forehead, forcibly separating the predator from her apparent prey. A popping sound echoed through the room as Beckett's actions released the vacuum seal that Katya's mouth had made over the bite.

The release of the seal also released Katya's mental hold on the man, who collapsed onto the ground in obvious pain. Alexis cast a containment spell around the man, suspending gravity just enough to keep the wound's fountain of spurting blood from hitting the ground. Lanie pushed her way through the crowd and knelt beside her patient, entering a healing trance as soon as she could make enough contact to do so. The Yìzhī's gift worked like a vacuum, sucking the floating blood back into the man's body before closing over the bite marks with fresh, undamaged skin.

Katya kicked and flailed against Beckett's secure hold; her fangs were still covered in the blood of her victim. The vampire let out an animalistic howl and licked her fangs, desperate to take in whatever last drops that she could. It was becoming increasingly clear to Beckett that they weren't going to be able to completely contain the situation on their own. _Castle_, she projected through the bond with her soulmate, _I need your help._

Castle was in the back corner of the room less than a second later, taking in the chaos. "You ladies sure know how to throw a party..." he teased, trying to ease the tension.

Beckett was in no mood to laugh. "Take Katya back to the warehouse," she ordered her fiancé. "Secure her in the box. Make sure there's *no* way she can leave."

"What's going on?" he asked, disturbed by the urgent, demanding tone in his beloved's voice.

"I'll explain as soon as I can get away," Beckett replied. "Go." Katya disappeared from Beckett's arms as Castle vanished.

It was only then that the Guardians noticed that the other five strippers were huddled in a far corner of the room, half-naked and terrified, still trying to process everything that they had just seen. When Lanie helped their fellow stripper up, proving that he was, indeed, okay, the five men seemed to breathe a sigh of relief. The relief lasted only a moment, though, as the process that healed their 'brother' only freaked them out even more.

Beckett sighed, recognizing that it was probably going to be some time before she was going to be able to give Castle the explanation she had just promised him. "Jenny, can you call your husband? I think we're going to need his help with this..."

Jenny looked in the direction that Beckett was pointing and noticed the five shell-shocked men in the corner. That was all the incentive that she needed to pull out her cell phone. "Yeah," she agreed, "I think you're right..."

#

It was a good four hours (and several thousand dollars of Castle's money) before everything was sorted out at the restaurant in the aftermath of the failed bachelorette party. "I don't understand," Alexis insisted as they watched their friend wail and thrash around in the box. "I've never seen her act anything like this."

"Never have I," Fallon and Ryan agreed in unison.

Esposito nodded alongside his friends. "She's *never* acted like this, guys. She's acting closer to an orphan than anything I've seen in her memories."

Beckett and Castle made the connection immediately. "Yeah, you're right," Castle agreed. "It's like she's lost her mind..."

"How could this have happened?" asked Lanie. "It doesn't make any sense."

Katya let out a last pained, wolf-like howl before collapsing on the floor of the box. Ryan brushed the briefest of connections against her mind, relieved to find that she was still alive. "She's just unconscious," he told the group.

"Can you reach her?" Fallon asked. The edge of desperation was starting to creep through his voice. "Is there any way you can find out what's going on in her head?"

Ryan turned back toward the box and reached out with his mind, trying to deepen the connection with his old friend. After a few tense, silent moments, Ryan sadly shook his head. "Sorry. It's like there's nothing there anymore. She's not dead...but that's about all I can tell you."

Fallon's face fell; that was probably the last news he could have wanted to hear. "All right," he sighed, trying to take the bigger picture into consideration. "She's not going anywhere tonight, and I don't think we're going to be able to do anything for her now. Let's re-convene in the morning." His gaze turned back to the sleeping form of his beloved. "None of us are going to be able to help her if we all lose our minds from lack of sleep."

"Are you sure?" asked Beckett. "We'll all stay..."

Fallon shook his head even as his eyes never left his fiancée's sleeping form. "Does anybody have any ideas that can help her? Right now?" When he heard six murmured "no"s from the people around him, Fallon re-iterated his original directive. "Then you guys should go home and get some rest. Hopefully we can look at this with fresh eyes in the morning."

Castle caught on to the first part of Fallon's 'orders' right away. "You guys?" he repeated. "You're not coming?"

"If that were the Lièrén in there," Fallon asked Castle, "where would you want to be?"

Six hands, in turn, squeezed Fallon's shoulders in a show of sympathy and support before the hallway emptied in a flash. Fallon sighed, turning his head to the right and the left just long enough to see that he was alone...except for a bar stool that he had never seen in the warehouse before that point. "Thanks, Castle," he whispered in the silence, then pulled the chair up to the window and resumed his silent vigil.

#

_The wooded clearing was eerily quiet save for the crackling of a campfire. Drusus was stoking the fire, waiting in silent, meditative contemplation for the young woman who had just arrived. "Have you made your decision?" he asked._

_Katya drew in a deep breath, then let it out in a slow, shaky stream. "I have," she declared. "If I marry that man, my life is over. If the only way for me to live is to die..."_

_Drusus stood up, his attention totally focused on the hope he thought he had lost. "You understand what you are asking me to do? What that means?"_

_Katya nodded. "I want to travel the world with you. I want to leave this life behind. If I have to become like you to do that, then make me like you."_

_Drusus walked around the edge of the fire until he was able to gently place his hands on Katya's shoulders. "I promise you, Ekaterina," he declared, moving a hand up to caress Katya's cheek and move the hair away from the base of her neck, "you will not regret this decision."_

_Even as her heart started to race with a mix of fear and anticipation, the warmth, love and respect that Katya saw in the eyes of the ancient vampire gave her the hope that everything was going to turn out for the best. "I am ready, Drusus."_

_The first bite happened in an instant. Katya gasped at the feel of teeth sinking into her flesh. There was a brief moment of pain from the impact, but the rough coolness of Drusus' tongue and the gentle pressure as he sucked her blood away from her body kept the pain to a minimum. Katya closed her eyes as she gave herself over to the sensations, letting her fear leave her body through the blood she was willingly giving away._

_Drusus pulled his mouth away from Katya's neck just as the temptation to give herself over to sleep crept into her thoughts for the first time. "I have taken your blood into my body, child," he told her, cradling Katya in his cold, strong arms to keep her focused. "If I leave you now, you will sleep and you will recover, but you will remain as you are. Once you have taken of my blood, Ekaterina, there is no turning back. Do you wish for me to go on?"_

_Weakly, Katya nodded. "Give me your blood, Drusus. Make me like you."_

_"As you wish, my child," said Drusus. He pulled his free hand up to his mouth and bit. The blood flowed freely from the two puncture wounds as he put his wrist up to Katya's mouth. "Drink, my child. Whatever you may feel, once you have tasted, take as much as you can."_

_Katya first tasted the blood with her tongue, recoiling for an instant at the metallic taste. Once the first wave of warmth flowed through her body, though, she lifted a weak hand to hold the vampire's wrist to her face and began to drink as she had been instructed. Every mouthful of blood that she swallowed sent an explosion of warmth into her stomach, then down her legs, up her arms and through every cell in her body. Swallow by swallow the heat grew, each explosion growing in intensity until her hair was drenched in sweat and her searing throat could swallow no more._

_Then the pain began in earnest._

_Katya pulled away from Drusus' wrist and let out a scream of pure agony. She rolled out of the vampire's arms and collapsed onto the ground beneath them, curling up into a ball to try and comfort herself as every nerve in her body seemed to alight in flame. Tremors started to wrack her tiny frame as muscles, joint and bones started to move of their own accord._

_The only comfort Katya found was in the occasional touch of a cooling hand...and the soothing voice of the elder vampire trying to reassure her. "I know it hurts, child," Drusus told her, "but all true change is painful. Especially a change that will last for eternity. You will get through this. Find the strength I know you possess, Ekaterina, and endure..."_

_Time passed far too slowly for Katya's liking. She was beginning to feel as if her entire life had been spent on the ground in front of this campfire, burning like the flames had made their way inside her very soul. It was, in truth, only moments before the waves of pain crested and started to subside to a dull, aching throb. Drusus sensed this change immediately, and gathered Katya back up into his arms once more. "Come, child," he encouraged her, "it is time for you to drink again."_

_Katya found she was having trouble forming words. "Can't."_

_"You *must*, child," he insisted. "Your human body is still dying, but your new body has not gotten what it needs to survive yet. We must share everything we have if you are to live through this."_

_Katya found she was still too weak to respond. She lifted her head as best she could, expecting to feel Drusus' wrist on her lips once more. Drusus, however, did not move to feed Katya in the way she was expecting. Instead, he lifted her head until her lips were brushing on the base of his neck. "Drink, child," he whispered. "Drink so you may live anew."_

_The command confused Katya in her weakened condition. How was she supposed to drink from *him*, when she had no open wound to drink from? Her dry tongue smacked against the roof of her mouth...and it was then that she realized the first true change in her body._

_She had fangs now, too._

_Katya moved her mouth into a comfortable position on the vampire's neck and bit down as hard as she could. When she sucked down the blood that flowed into her mouth, the action struck a primal chord within her; it felt a little like suckling at her mother's breast. Giving in to the instinctual sensation, she closed her eyes and continued to swallow mouthful after mouthful of the life-giving blood. She stopped only once: gasping as she felt Drusus's fangs sink into her neck once more and heard his mind-voice ring through her thoughts for the first time. 'Drink,' he told her. 'We must share all our blood to live.' Katya obeyed without thinking, latching back onto Drusus' neck and drinking his blood as she drank hers. The energy that built within her was slower this time; a steady, growing core of power that seemed to well up from the depths of her soul..._

_Until it hit her squarely between the eyes._

_Katya tried to scream in pain once again...only to have the scream calm to a grunt when she realized that screaming only *increased* the pain in her head. She clutched at her ears to dull the roaring sounds of the forest around her and rolled away from the fire, praying for the bright light and nauseating smells to leave her to the blissful nothingness of true death._

_'Is this it?' She wondered as her life flashed before her eyes. 'Did I forsake my family and turn my back on my life, only to have it taken from me now?'_

_Drusus' words of comfort came back to reassure her a second time. "This is not your time, Ekaterina. You will get through this. Find the strength I know you possess, child, and endure..."_

_The clip-clop of slowly moving horse hooves pounded on Katya's head with the force of a hammer. She heard something or someone descend from the horse's back; then she heard that same someone move a heavy-sounding bundle from the horse to the ground. She took in a breath of air...and the smell of that bundle hit her like the smell of a celebration cake coming fresh out of the fire in the kitchen tent._

_It was the sweetest, most delicious thing she had ever smelled in all her young life._

_Drusus knelt down beside her and placed a cold hand on her back. "I have a present for you, child," he cooed gently. "One that will make all the pain go away. Would you like that?"_

_Katya nodded as enthusiastically as she dared. "Yes. Oh please, yes..."_

_"Then open your eyes."_

_Drusus had positioned Katya so that the sweet-smelling bundle was right in front of her. When she saw the content of the package, she wished she had the energy to laugh as recent memories flooded her mind. Memories of being told that this fat, mean, bald, old man was to be her husband. Memories of him looking at her with an all-consuming lust and grabbing at her with a touch so rough and so painful it had left bruises behind. Memories of watching that man, naked, beat another one of his wives...first with a stick, then with his manhood, then by taking that stick and shoving it in the place where his manhood had just been..._

_Drusus' voice cut through the tidal wave of awful images. "Drink, my child," he told her. "Drink until this...pig has nothing left to give. Drink and leave your old life behind forever."_

_Katya didn't need to be told twice. She lunged at Timoshkin with every ounce of her newfound strength, stradling the man like she remembered him stradling the woman she had watched him attack. The bound and gagged man rolled onto his back from the force of Katya's attack, and all he could do is cry out in horror as Katya sank her teeth into his neck and drank until she felt no more blood run down her throat._

_When Katya finished her meal, the roar she let out was primal and animalistic. It wasn't the scream of agony that had torn through her before. On the contrary...this was the newborn beast within her, celebrating its entrance into being._

_"There is one last thing you must do child, before your transformation can be completed," Drusus told her. "You must earn your place at my side." He turned and pointed to his manservant...the vampire who had brought her the first real meal of her new life. "I can only take one of you with me, child. Rip his head off."_

_Katya smiled broadly, her newborn fangs glistening in the moonlight as the beast within prepared to strike. "As you wish, my sire..." She charged at the other vampire with all of her newfound speed, but the more experienced vampire jumped out of the way, leaping over her head and landing behind her, next to his sire._

_It was then that the world started to shift around her. Katya was now fully aware that she was not the newborn she had remembered herself to once be, but was instead her five century old 'true' vampire self of the modern day. And her opponent...her opponent was no longer her sire's vampire servant, but a dark-skinned woman. The woman's skin was so dark, in fact, that it was what convinced Katya that she was no longer in a dream, but in a place that was far, far worse. "Who are you?" Katya demanded of the woman._

_"This is my new body," the woman answered her. "I have come to claim it."_

_"This is *my* body," Katya countered, anger building within her at the woman's claims. "You have no right to it."_

_The woman approached Katya slowly, as if looking to talk out the disagreement between the two of them. "You are nothing more than a demon," she insisted. "You have had *centuries* on this Earth. Why not let someone else have a turn?"_

_"Sorry," Katya apologized, "but I believe this is a case where, as the human expression goes, I was here first."_

_The woman sighed wearily, as if this was how she had expected the conversation to end. "I had hoped you would be willing to leave this body peacefully," she told Katya, "but since you have decided to be stubborn about it..."_

_Katya pointed out their surroundings to the woman in front of her. "I have fought for my life many times. You are not the first time, and you probably won't be the last." She lunged at the woman in front of her, who dodged the charge to Katya's right, scraping a nail across the vampire's cheek as she ran by. Katya touched the wound when she stopped, rubbing the drops of blood between her fingers to spark her anger into a fury. "And so it begins..."_

#

Fallon woke up with a start, cursing himself for dozing off and wondering, idly, why he had been dreaming about the two tiger spirits fighting each other. All stray thoughts ceased, however, when checked on his beloved fiancée. Katya had a large gash across her cheek and two black eyes: wounds that he was absolutely certain had not been there when he had dozed off. He checked the door to see if someone could have gone through...only to find Castle's seal frustratingly intact. He then ran up and down the corridor to see if there were any potential suspects in the building...only to find that he was alone. *He* was the only one who could have inflicted the injuries on Katya externally, and he had been asleep half the night outside her room behind a magically locked door. "So how in God's name could this have happened?" he exclaimed.

A grunt from inside the box caught Fallon's attention. He watched, helpless, as Katya curled up on the floor, reflexively protecting herself from an injury that he knew couldn't be coming within the physical world. Fallon started to wonder if his beloved was truly losing her mind...until a small pool of blood started to gather underneath her half-open mouth.

Katya was fighting for her life. He was convinced of that now. And he was equally sure that *he* did not have the power to help her. _There's only one group of people in the world who did..._

Fallon's next move was as quick as his next thought, pulling out his cell phone to dial a very familiar number. "Ryan? It's about Katya. Yeah, it's bad. Call Castle and get everyone over here. There's something that you need to see."

#

**_Comments?_**


	11. Chapter 11

The Guardians were in the warehouse within fifteen minutes of Fallon's phone call. "Ryan said you called him," Castle told his 'boss' in greeting. "Where's the fire?"

"There," Fallon replied, never taking his eyes away from the room where his fiancée lay suffering. The group followed Fallon's line of sight and let out a collective gasp as they saw what their friend was seeing. "It started about a half an hour ago," Fallon told the group, "with that gash across her cheek."

"And none of the injuries have healed," Ryan asked, "even though she's hopped up on human blood?"

When Fallon shook his head, it motivated two of the Guardians to spring into action. "Can we see her?" asked Lanie, motioning to indicate both herself and Ryan.

"I don't see why not," Fallon shrugged. "She hasn't moved since she passed out. And it's not like she can hurt you guys, anyway."

Ryan turned to the last obstacle in their path. "Castle?"

Castle put his hand on the door, canceling out all of the locks and wards he had put on the room. "It's open," he announced solemnly. "Be careful."

Ryan and Lanie nodded their understanding of Castle's warning, then opened the door and entered the box. Ryan poured peaceful energy into the room, trying to soothe Katya's obvious distress. They took up positions on either side of the vampire, each trying to reach their friend in their own way. Ryan was the first to break his connection. _I can't reach her_, he told the group through a mind-link, _there's something blocking me._

_Do you have any idea what it is?_ Fallon asked.

Ryan shook his head. _Sometimes I can get blocked if someone's feeling particularly strong emotions, but this doesn't feel like that. But as to what it is_...he could only shrug his shoulders in defeat. _Not a clue._

Lanie sat silently throughout Ryan's report, her focus entirely devoted to her healing trance. Concerned by his friend's silence, Ryan opened an energy connection to his fellow Guardian...and felt the familiar energy flow through him almost immediately. _Lanie? _Ryan asked gently, not wanting to pull her focus any more than he had to, _What have you found?_

_She's fighting...something, that much I can tell,_ Lanie replied. _I feel like I'm bailing water out of a rowboat with a leak in it. I can keep her going physically, but I have no idea for how long or if it's going to make any difference. But you guys need to figure out what she's fighting, and fast._

Ryan cut off his communication connection with Lanie, but kept open the energy connection that she was drawing from like an oasis in the middle of the Sahara. _I'm gonna stay here, guys, and help Lanie. Call us if you need us?_

_Okay_, Beckett agreed. As she felt the connection with Ryan disengage, Beckett turned to Castle and Fallon. "This can't just be happening out of the blue," Beckett mused. "Mark, what has she been like lately?"

"Besides the dreams?" asked Fallon. Beckett nodded. "Moody. Nervous. Preoccupied. She hasn't been sleeping much..."

"She mentioned that earlier," agreed Castle, his mind recalling their previous conversation. "Something about her being a daywalker and a vampire being at odds with each other?"

Fallon nodded. "She has no idea when her body needs to be awake and when she needs to sleep. She'll go for days at a stretch without sleeping and then sleep for a week."

Castle's eyes widened as inspiration hit him full force. "How thirsty has she been?"

Fallon frowned at Castle, confused. "Worst I've ever seen her. She's been craving blood non-stop. Why?"

Castle turned to Beckett and presented the opening basis for his theory. "You know how I have a horrible tendency to procrastinate when I have a deadline looming?" Beckett nodded, so Castle continued, "well, in the past, that's usually led to a lot of all-nighters."

"I used to pull all-nighters in college, Castle," Fallon countered. "What's your point?"

"Well, when I'm in middle of an all-nighter, I'm usually so immune to caffeine that it does nothing to keep me awake. I end up spending most of the night chowing down on sugar and carbs. Pasta, stuff like that..."

Beckett caught on to her partner's train of thought. "You think someone's messed with her blood supply somehow?" Castle nodded.

"Why would someone do that?" asked Fallon. Castle opened his mouth, then closed it again quickly when he realized he didn't have an answer to Fallon's question.

Beckett, though, was starting to form a theory in her own mind. "The Vodun murders!"

It was Castle's turn to jump onto Beckett's train of thought. "You kept thinking you smelled Katya at the crime scenes..."

"What if it wasn't that I was smelling Katya at the crime scenes? What if I've been smelling the victims' blood on Katya?"

"You think someone might be draining these victims' blood to doctor it or spike it somehow and feed it to Katya?" asked Fallon. Castle nodded. "That still doesn't give us motive. Why would someone do that?"

Castle hesitated for a minute before he came up with a reply to Fallon's question. "I don't know," he admitted. "But I think I have an idea who might."

"Michelle?" asked Beckett.

"She had an answer with the limited evidence we gathered from the crime scenes. Maybe she'll have a better answer if we give her more information to work with."

"Michelle's your Vodun expert?" asked Fallon, assuming the answer out of context. "Does she know about you guys?"

Castle shook his head. "She's guessed a lot from rumor and conjecture, but she's not a member of the Network..."

"She is now," Fallon declared. "Get her here and explain Katya's situation. If there's any possibility that she might know what to do to save Katya, then I want to know what she knows. And I want to know it now."

#

The sun was just starting to light up the clouds in the eastern sky as Castle popped into the tiny alleyway just outside the back door to Burkono. Not wanting to waste a moment, Castle found the kitchen door and started pounding on it, determined to get the attention of anyone who might be in the restaurant. Fortune proved to be on his side, though, as Michelle called down from what sounded like the second floor. "Just a second," she yelled, "Just a goddamn bloody second, I'll be there in a minute."

Castle suppressed a chuckle at Michelle's annoyance. She opened the door wearing pajamas and a bathrobe. "Rick?" she asked, annoyed and confused by the man who was so desperately beating down her door. "What's going on?"

"I'm so glad you're here," Castle exclaimed, clearly relieved. "I didn't think you guys opened for breakfast..."

"I live in an apartment on the second floor," Michelle explained. "But that's not why you're here this early, is it?"

"I need you to come with me," Castle replied. "We've had a break in the case and we need your help."

Michelle's eyes widened in surprise as the timing of Castle's words started to sink in. "It's that urgent, huh?" Castle nodded. "Okay, just give me a couple of minutes to get dressed..."

"Why wait?" Castle countered with a mischevous grin.

Michelle looked down in amazement to discover that she was fully dressed. In jeans and a white t-shirt that she didn't own. She stared at Castle, awestruck by the minor display of his power. "Those stories about you guys...they weren't exaggerating, were they? It's all...it's all true?"

Castle nodded. "Ready to go?"

Michelle grabbed her purse and shut the door, locking it behind her. "Okay, I guess...let's go."

They were gone a second later.

#

The pair arrived in the main hallway of the warehouse, which was closed for the day as per the orders of the Director. This gave Michelle the opportunity to adjust to their unique mode of transportation in relative privacy. "Where are we?" she asked, amazed by the instant change in her surroundings.

"My office, I guess you could say," Castle replied. He offered a hand to his friend to guide her. "C'mon. We can't afford to waste time."

Castle led Michelle through the maze of corridors until they reached the box and the worried man pacing just outside of it. Fallon noticed the new person with Castle and made the connection immediately. "Ms. Alishion?" he asked, confirming Michelle's identity, "I'm Director Mark Fallon. Thank you for coming so quickly."

"It was kind of hard to refuse," Michelle responded with a chuckle, still trying to process everything she had seen. The smile died on her lips, though, when she saw the expression of pain on Fallon's face. "Rick said you had a break in the case. How can I help?"

Fallon turned his attention back to the box. "We believe that we may have found the target of the blood sacrifices."

Michelle followed Fallon's line of sight until she noticed the woman collapsed on the floor. "That's her?" she asked. "The woman between Agent Ryan and Doctor Esposito?"

Fallon nodded. "Her name's Ekaterina Petrovich. She's my fiancée."

Michelle squeezed Fallon's shoulder to show her support for the clearly suffering man. "I'm so sorry. You think she may be the target of your killer?"

Fallon nodded. "She lost consciousness late last night. Doctor Esposito's been trying to help her, but she's having trouble keeping up with Kat's injuries..."

"Keeping up?" asked Michelle. "Something's still hurting her? In *here*?"

Fallon nodded again. "She's dying," he quietly admitted. "She's dying and there's nothing I can do to help her..."

The helplessness in Fallon's voice broke Michelle's heart. The situation, though, confused her. "Strange..."

"What?" asked Fallon, desperate for any shred of hope.

"Well, people usually call on Baron Samedi to save someone, not to kill them. You said something's still hurting her, even though she's in a locked room with a healer?"

"She's fighting something," Fallon replied, not taking his focus away from his beloved. "And the injuries of whatever battle's going on in her head are showing up in her body."

Michelle's eyes flew wide as the reality of the situation came into focus. "That's it! That has to be it!"

"What?"

"The sacrifices weren't to keep someone alive. Your killer is trying to bring someone back from the dead. *That's* what your fiancée is fighting. But..."

"But what?"

Michelle took a moment to carefully word her question before saying it. "In order to prepare a body for that kind of a process, the ritual would introduces all sorts of different herbs into the body. Most of which would be highly toxic to a living being..."

Their suspicions confirmed, Castle and Beckett delivered the same exclamation in unison. "That has to be it!"

"I don't follow," said Michelle.

Castle ignored her. "It makes perfect sense. Kill the victim, drain them, spike the blood with whatever you need for the ritual, then sell it to Katya..."

"And if he's selling it to Katya," agreed Beckett, "then who knows how many other vamps might be drinking the same tainted blood..."

Michelle's face drained of color. "Vamps? As in...vampires?"

The Guardians continued to ignore her. "It would make sense to have a backup on hand in case things didn't take with Katya..." suggested Beckett.

"Which, obviously, they haven't..." agreed Castle.

"We can't be sure of that yet," insisted Fallon. "She's been going through this for *hours*. The only reason I can think of is that if some spirit is trying to use Katya to come back from the dead, then today is the day it's trying to move in."

"Do you know Katya gets her blood?" Beckett asked Fallon.

Fallon shook his head slightly. "She doesn't let me get involved in that. Human blood's a black market trade."

"I'll bet," Castle commented. "Espo? Do you know?"

Esposito closed his eyes to allow himself to better focus on going through his copy of Katya's memories. "I've got a location, but the face is a little sketchy. Might be the tainted blood, but it's possible our guy has enough of his own mojo to cast a perception filter."

"But you know *where* he is?" asked Beckett.

Esposito nodded. "He works out of the back of a butcher shop on 39th & 9th."

"If the spirit is trying to force his way into your friend's body," suggested Michelle, "then he's probably involved in a pretty delicate ritual to support the process. If you stop the ritual, it may give your friend a fighting chance."

The three Guardians disappeared before Michelle had the chance to blink. She shook her head in amazement. "Unbelieveable..."

"You get used to it," Fallon told her, a ghost of a smile playing across his face.

#

**_Probably 2-3 more chapters to go, and then it's off to go write the novel...Comments welcome!_**


	12. Chapter 12

**Told you guys I don't abandon stories. Not if I can help it, anyway...sorry this took me so long to post. Real life got in the way. Thanks to Jesse Wales for sending the comment that motivated me to finish this chapter and get it out for y'all to enjoy. One more to go!**

* * *

Michelle studied the all-consuming concern on Fallon's face as he watched the drama going on in the box. "The woman in there that they're working on, Katya, she's a *vampire*, director?"

Fallon nodded, instantly going on the defensive. "Is that a problem, Ms. Alishion?"

"No, no," Michelle backtracked, surprised by the man's protective posture. "Not a problem. I'm just...surprised, I guess. You seem to love her a lot."

Fallon's eyes never left the box. "She's an extraordinary being. I hope you'll get the chance to find that out for yourself."

Michelle returned her attention back to the three beings who were so intently focused and unnaturally still in the room next to them. "Makes sense, then," she mused, "why the shaman picked Katya as a target..."

"Why's that?" asked Fallon.

"If your killer found out that Katya's a vampire, he'd probably have assumed that Katya didn't have a soul. Makes her the perfect vessel for a resurrection." When Fallon's attention returned to her, his brow furrowed in confusion, Michelle explained, "one of the common legends about vampires is that they don't have a soul..."

Fallon waved off the basic explanation. "But why would that make her a perfect vessel?"

"Because it's impossible for a shaman to kick a soul out of its body. Only Baron Samedi can do that. But a living, well-kept body with no soul...all you'd have to do is prep the body for the new soul's entry and ask Baron Samedi to let them come in."

"But Katya's not like the 'traditional' vampires..." argued Fallon.

"Obviously," Michelle agreed, trying to soothe the agitated man in front of her. "That must be why she's been able to fight the preparation spell for so long..."`

Fallon shook his head. "No, you don't understand." He opened his mouth to speak, then closed it when he realized he was having trouble explaining the odd idiosyncrasies of his reality to an outsider. "Katya and I, we received a...blessing...from an Aztec god. The blessing that Katya received allows her to walk around in the sunlight."

"So sunlight won't kill her?" asked Michelle.

Fallon shook his head again...then stopped when an idea popped into his mind. He turned his attention away from Michelle and burst into the box. "Lanie, can you hear me?"

No one in the room opened their eyes. "I hear you," Ryan replied. "What is it?"

Fallon knelt down next to the two Guardians and his fiancée. "Is it true that drinking your blood kills a vampire instantly?"

The question captured the attention of both Guardians immediately. Ryan's eyes flew open and he stared down Fallon's. "Yeah," he answered hesitantly, "why?"

"Katya once told me that your blood reacts like sunlight in her system," said Fallon. When Ryan nodded, Fallon asked, "but that was before her blessing. Do we know how she would react to it *now*?"

Ryan shook his head. "We never tested it," he replied. "No one thought it was worth the risk..."

"What about now?" Fallon countered, his voice pressing with a growing urgency. "Katya's been drinking tainted blood. That's why she can't fight off these injuries. But if we can figure out a way to burn that blood out of her system..."

"She might be better able to fight this off on her own," Lanie declared, her eyes opening as she slipped out of the healing trance. "It could work."

"Or it could turn her to *ash*," Ryan countered, his own voice starting to show an edge of desperation. "Are you sure you want to take that risk?"

Fallon looked down at his fiancée, a lump forming in his throat as he watched a black eye start to form on her face. "Do we have any other options left?"

"We *inject* her with some of our blood instead of letting her drink it," Lanie explained quickly, trying to satisfy Ryan's obvious apprehension with the idea. "I can follow the blood's path through her system and heal any residual damage..."

"And I believe her portion of the blessing will keep this from being fatal anyway," Fallon agreed. "I think we have to try."

Ryan finally, reluctantly, nodded. "Okay. I'll get a syringe from Lanie's lab..."

"I'll go," Lanie offered. "We need more supplies than that." When the two men stared at her in confusion, Lanie turned to Fallon to explain. "Once we've burned all the tainted blood out of her system she's not going to have *any* blood in her system to fight with. She's going to need fresh blood to work from."

Fallon caught on to Lanie's suggestion immediately. "My blood."

"You're as immortal as we are," Lanie agreed. "But your blood doesn't have the same charge that ours does. You're the best source of blood she's got."

Fallon nodded, agreeing readily to the idea. "Let's do it."

#

The alleyway behind the butchershop reeked of blood and rancid pork fat. Castle wrinkled his nose almost as soon as they appeared. "Whoa..." he whispered.

Castle wasn't able to get out any more than that. "Shhh..." Beckett whispered back, pulling out her weapon from a holster behind her back.

The move caused Castle to immediately cast an energy shield spell. "What are you hearing?" he asked Beckett.

"Eight men," Beckett replied. "Our shaman, one guy I can't read and six henchmen armed to the teeth."

Castle smiled. "That's what you have a wizard here for. Put your gun away."

Beckett holstered her weapon when she saw the look on her partner's face. "You have a plan, I take it?"

"Yep. Let me take the lead on this one."

#

"We should move Katya into the lab," Lanie instructed the group.

Fallon moved to pick his fiancée up until a hand on his shoulder stopped him. "Allow me," said Ryan.

Katya's body began to float in the air of its own accord. "Thank you," said Fallon, following Katya out of the box and into Lanie's nearby 'office' space.

Michelle, for her part, stared at the floating woman in open-mouthed shock. "Is she *floating*?" she asked in amazement.

No one answered her question. Lanie's focus was totally consumed by the needs of her 'patient'. "Put her on the bed," she told Ryan. "Make her comfortable." When Ryan complied with her instructions, Lanie turned to Fallon. "Up you go, boss," she told Fallon. "Next to your girl."

"Any final instructions?" asked Fallon as he watched Lanie insert a pic line into his arm.

"Well," Lanie replied, "I don't know what kind of relationship you have with the tiger spirit, but now might be a good time to tap into it. And whatever you do, focus on everything you have to live for. Once you choose death, there's no going back."

Fallon squeezed Katya's hand as he watched Lanie insert the other end of the line into her arm. Briefly his thoughts wandered to how warm Katya's touch had always felt. How alive she had always seemed to him. Until now. "I understand."

Lanie put her hand over Fallon and Kstya's joined hands, squeezing them in her own show of support for the couple. "Good luck, you two." After Fallon nodded in acknowledgement, Lanie turned to Ryan. "Did you find that syringe, Kev?"

"Yeah," Ryan replied. He was rotating the syringe in his hands, as if trying to figure out which end was up. "How do you use this thing, anyway?"

Lanie had to suppress a chuckle. "Give me that thing before you hurt yourself with it," she declared as she snatched the syringe from Ryan's hand. Prepping the device, she opened and closed her hand a couple of times to locate a vein...

Until a hand covered her closed fist. "I think we should use my blood," said Ryan.

"Why?" asked Lanie.

"I've been blocked from getting in Katya's head since this whole thing started," Ryan replied. "I'm hoping that if we use my blood I can chase it into her brain and help her fight off whatever's been trying to possess her."

Lanie slipped her fist out from under Ryan's hand, understanding and accepting his logic. "Okay. Give me your arm." Ryan held out his arm, turning his palm upwards so that Lanie could quickly find a vein. Lanie drew a full syringe of blood, then circled around to the empty side of the bed and plunged the needle into Katya's arm.

The reaction was immediate. The vampire let out a bloodcurdling scream, writhing around on the bed in agony. Fallon tightened his hold on Katya's hand, starting the flow of blood through the tube in the process. Lanie set the syringe on a nearby tray and grabbed onto Katya's wildly flailing other hand. "Ryan," she exclaimed, grunting with the effort of trying to pin down the vampire's arm, "I could use a little *help* here!"

"I...think...okay, I got her," Ryan replied with some grunting of his own as he forced Katya's other arm down to her side. He closed his eyes to improve his ability to focus. "I'm gonna try...to..."

"Wait!" Lanie exclaimed, her eyes still closed. "I haven't gotten to her brain yet..." Ryan fidgeted nervously, shifting his weight from one foot to the other, waiting for what seemed like an eternity as Lanie's healing trance flew through Katya's system, chasing after Ryan's blood as quickly as her gift would allow. "Got it," she finally declared. "I've made it past the brain."

Ryan connected to Katya's mind, and his world disappeared in an explosion of blinding white light...

#

Castle focused all of his energies on the door in front of him. He gently laid his hand on the frame surrounding it as he closed his eyes. "Alligaveritis huius cubiculi..." he whispered, sending a rippling flash of blue energy along the wall as the last word left his lips. "Whatever magic may be going on in there," he told his partners quietly, "it should no longer be able to leave the room."

"But you won't have your powers in there either, will you?" asked Esposito, his mind going back to the last time the wizard used the spell.

Castle shook his head. "I tweaked the intent. The roadblock is only one-way. Magic can go in, it just can't go out..."

"That's not all that can go in," Beckett countered, cutting her fiancé off. "We got incoming in the next room."

"How many?" asked Esposito.

"Can't tell," Beckett whispered in reply. Castle noticed the shudder as it ran down his fiancée's spine. "But there are a lot of them," she added. "Vampires."

Castle and Esposito soon shared their partner's unease. "Jesus..." breathed Castle. His focus, though, quickly snapped back to their mission. "I hate to say it, but we I think we need to go after the vamps first and keep these guys alive. We don't know if they've got backup that will keep going after Katya if something happens to them." When the two heads near his nodded in agreement, Castle then held up his fingers to motion to his team in a silent countdown. "3...2...1..."

#

Ryan's vision cleared, showing him that he was in a clearing, at night, surrounded by woods. He had to resist the urge to roll his eyes. "More woods, huh?" A low, rumbling purr responded to his comment. Ryan looked down...and his eyes flew wide when he saw a bengal tiger standing patiently by his side. "Raja?" asked Ryan. "Is that you?"

The tiger shook his head...which caused Ryan's eyes to open even wider as the only other option became clear. "Fallon?" The tiger nodded, and Ryan chuckled in amazement before his attention returned to the problem at hand. "Okay, if you're here with me," he told Fallon, "then we need to find your girl..."

Ryan didn't have to say any more than that. Fallon took off at a sprint through a clearing between two clumps of trees, heading toward a bright spot on the horizon that looked like a small campfire. He caught up to the tiger quickly, then both man and beast sped up when they heard Katya cry out in pain. It only took them a few seconds to get to the campfire...where they found a dark-skinned, dark haired woman kicking Katya, who was curled up in a fetal position on ground, whimpering in obvious pain. Fallon pounced on the woman immediately, separating the attacking woman from his beloved before swiping at her with his paws.

*FLASH*

A powerful wave of light and energy blasted Fallon, knocking the tiger briefly off his feet. Fallon sprang up quickly, crouching to strike again...until Ryan stopped him before he could take off. "I got this," he told Fallon, "take care of your girl." Ryan swore he almost heard the tiger let out a low, complaining grumble before it left his side. He chuckled quietly as he stood up, taking the moment to focus his attention entirely on his adversary. "Hey," Ryan called out to the woman who was kicking Katya while she was down, "how about you start picking on someone your own size?"

The woman turned around to face Ryan, clearly surprised that there was yet another new player on the battlefield. "Who the hell are you?" she growled.

"Her family," Ryan replied confidently, crossing the clearing to stand at the campfire opposite his opponent. "And we will *not* let you have her."

The woman laughed arrogantly, seemingly brushing off the challenge being presented to her. "A demon?" she exclaimed, "Who has *family?"

Fallon let out a low growl in response to the woman's taunting. Ryan simply lifted his right hand in response, signaling for the tiger to stay out of the fight. "We are her family," Ryan countered. "And I protect my family."

"You think you're going to protect her?" the woman countered, clearly surprised by Ryan's calm confidence. "You should be much more worried about protecting yourself."

A second wave of energy blasted out from the woman's side of the clearing, causing Fallon to yelp and curl up against Katya to shield her from the blast. Ryan, though, was prepared for the anticipated second blast. The energy, though, hit the empty space around Ryan, Katya and Fallon, deflecting harmlessly away from the trio. "Is that all you got?" he teased the woman. "Sorry. Not impressed."

The woman's expression flushed with shock and rage as she realized a true adversary was now standing before her. "You want her," she growled, "come and get her."

#

Beckett and Esposito entered the back of the butcher shop, guns aimed and at the ready in case Castle's magic failed. They needn't have worried. The henchmans' bullets pinged harmlessly off of the wizard's energy shields. Some of them deflected immediately back into the mercenaries themselves, causing them to crumple to the ground in bleeding masses of pain.

The blood caught the attention of the group's other collection of enemies. A dozen vampires poured into the room from the front entrances, covered head to toe in black to protect themselves from the sun. Sheathed swords appeared on the backs of the Guardians, and Castle, Beckett and Esposito had three of the vampires decapitated within a minute. That minute, though, was more than enough time for the other six vampires to each grab and injured henchman and drain him dry.

The Guardians killed three of the vampires even as the blood was dripping from their fangs. Castle, Beckett and Esposito scanned the area, looking for the three remaining vampires. "Any sign of them?" Castle asked Beckett as they formed a circle around the entranced man in the center of the room.

Beckett was about to answer when two more vampires burst into the room, each one carrying their own swords. The Guardians moved to engage the new intruders when the three missing vampires dropped from the ceiling and attacked the Guardians from behind, each one biting into a Guardian before Castle, Beckett or Esposito had a chance to defend themselves.

The three vampires pulled their fangs out of the Guardians' necks as soon as they struck blood, staggering back from their intended victims as they doubled over in obvious pain. A flush colored each of the vampire's cheeks, then grew and deepened as each vampire's face reddened before they burst into flames and dissolved into ash.

As they watched the scene unfold before them, the two remaining vampires fell to their knees, their swords falling to the ground with a resounding clang. "Mon dieu, it is true," one of the vampires exclaimed, "everything she told me about you...it...it is all true..."

"Who?" Beckett demanded. "Who are you? Who are you talking about? Who told you about us?"

"M-m-my...my name is Michel des Beauxartistes, honored ones," Michel stammered out nervously, his eyes never looking up from his spot on the floor. "I am a friend of Ekaterina Petrovich. When she came to me about her...condition, I decided to investigate and found out about this awful excuse for a blood dealer."

The group turned around, returning their attention to the man that they had all come to see. Even though his face was spattered with the blood of the dead henchmen and streaked with the ashes of the vampires that had died around him, the seated mage was still deep in his trance state. "I thought you sealed the room, Castle?" asked Beckett.

The wizard nodded. "I did. There's no way he should be able to reach Katya from here."

"Only one way to find out for sure," Esposito declared. He reached through his soul into the connection that he shared with his wife. _Lanie?_

#

The battle had been raging for what felt, to Ryan, like an eternity. The spirit was quick and aggressive, coming at Ryan with everything she had. Ryan, though, responded with equal aggressiveness, taking everything that the spirit was throwing at him and reflecting it back upon her...adding his own counterattacks for good measure.

Their prize was curled up in a ball between them. Katya convulsed in her fetal position, occasionally whimpering as excruciating waves of pain racked her body. Fallon lay next to Katya, placing himself between the battle and his beloved as best he could, growling possessively anytime the combatants came too close.

Ryan dove out of the way of a flying tree branch and rolled into an attacking crouch, sending the tree branch back toward the spirit at lightning speed.

The spirit caught the branch in her hands and broke it, tossing the branch away when she was confident her opponent couldn't use it against her. "I can do this for eternity, you know," she called back to Ryan. "I doubt your...sister there could say the same."

Ryan looked over at Katya and realized that the spirit was right. It was clear to everyone that Katya was fading fast. _If I don't finish this soon... _Ryan watched the spirit's eyes wander over to look in Katya's direction. When he recognized the look of longing and regret in the woman's eyes, he knew that his opportunity had arrived. He moved at the speed of thought, sprinting across the clearing until he had the spirit fully physically immobilized. "I don't want to hurt you," he warned the spirit, "but I will not let you have what you came here to take." Ryan tightened his grip on the spirit's arms, causing the spirit to wince with the perception of pain. "Do you understand? I will let you live if you promise to depart from this body and never return."

"I cannot...I cannot make such a promise," the spirit grunted. "My beloved promised this body to me so we could be together again. It is *mine* and I shall have it."

Ryan's face fell, knowing what his next move had to be. He released the spirits arms and wrapped them around her neck. "Then I am truly sorry for this," he insisted, "but you have left me no choice." Ryan then snapped her neck and lifted it away from her head in one clean motion, causing the body to disappear in a cloud of white dust.

The Guardian wiped the dust off of his hands with a weary sigh, his expression consumed by guilt over what he had just done. The guilt subsided, though, when he saw the look of serene peace on the face of his friend. Katya looked to be free of pain for the first time since he had entered her mind...the Fallon-cat snuggling beside her to provide her an extra measure of comfort and security while she rested. It was only when he witnessed the love shared by his two friends that Ryan finally allowed himself to smile. "I guess I'll just leave you two kids alone in here, then..."

With a wave of his hands, Ryan's world disappeared in a blinding flash of white light.

#

**Comments welcome!**


	13. Chapter 13

**_Thanks to everyone who left comments on the last chapter - especially Talldude. As always, it is an honor and a pleasure to hear from you. :-)_**

* * *

Before Esposito had a chance to get through to his wife, the entranced man on the floor of the butcher shop let out a roaring cry of pure agony. The cry caught the attention of every living being in the room. The two vampires jumped up from their kneeling positions as the three Guardians returned to encircling the man who had been their primary objective.

Never opening his eyes, the shaman collapsed in a motionless heap.

Castle's eyes locked with Beckett's in a silent plea for more information. When Beckett opened her senses to get a better overview of the scene, she lowered her sword almost immediately. "Stand down, boys. He's dead."

Michel let out a string of French curses in frustration. When that returned the Guardians' attentions back to *him*, the elder vampire simply tapped his ear to begin his explanation. "I heard your reasoning earlier, honored ones, and I agree with you. We needed that one alive to know if the danger to Katya still persists..."

"It does not. This I swear on oath."

Five swords returned to instant readiness as their owners pointed them toward the man now standing at the back entrance to the butcher shop. "And who are you to be making such a promise?" asked Castle.

The finely dressed gentleman leaned on his cane as he slowly crossed the room's threshold and bowed deeply in greeting. "I am Baron Samedi," he replied.

Beckett's eyes widened slightly as the evidence of her senses kicked into place. "You were in the room earlier," she declared. "When he started the spell."

"I was." The baron nodded, pointing his cane toward the newly deceased man in the center of the room. "That one had made a deal with me to restore life to his soul's mate, whom he had recently lost to some disease...I believe your kind calls it cancer?"

"And what were the terms of this...deal?" asked Esposito, his sword never leaving its attack position.

Baron Samedi waved a hand in Esposito's direction, and the five swords disappeared. "Sorry, but I can't think with you waving those pointy sticks in my direction. Anyway, to your question. The deal was to produce a fresh corpse in near-perfect condition as a suitable vessel for his soul's mate. In exchange for providing said vessel, I would allow the one he had lost to return to him for a time."

Michel's face set with grim anger, understanding what Samedi's flippant comments could potentially mean for his kind. "And were you *aware* of the conditions of the vessel he was trying to present you with..."

"I was not," Samedi replied, cutting off Michel's tirade before it began. "As you might have suspected, I have had very few dealings with your kind, sir. The shaman was not aware of the fact that your kind continue to possess your soul after your...metamorphosis. Nor was I. I was only made aware of this fact a few moments ago."

Beckett recognized the gap in her sensory memories immediately. "That's why you weren't in the room when we arrived."

The baron nodded in Beckett's direction before returning his attention to Michel. "Your...friend and her associates have received the blessing of a very powerful ancient god. He contacted me before you arrived to...enlighten me as to my mistaken assumptions."

Castle recognized the tone in Samedi's voice. "You and Itzamna *know* each other?!"

"I do," the baron agreed. "I think that you would be surprised at how many of the beings you consider to be gods know each other...at any rate, after Itzamna explained the situation to me I realized that a grievous error had been made. I have returned to do what is necessary to restore the balance of the spiritual order." Samedi returned his attention to Michel, dropping down to one knee before he spoke. "To try to evict a soul from its original body is the greatest of abominations. That is why the shaman is now dead...for even I am forbidden from attempting such an act. I swear, on oath, that none who follow me will ever go after your kind again. Those who attempt to do so will be punished to the best of my ability. Please accept my humblest of apologies for the suffering that has been inflicted upon your friend."

"A god asking a vampire for an apology," Esposito muttered under his breath, "*that's* gotta be a first..."

Michel stared at Baron Samedi in slack-jawed surprise. "Katya...Katya will recover?"

"She already has," the baron replied. "She will suffer no lingering effects from this ordeal. This I swear to you on oath."

"Then I...I forgive you?" asked Michel, unsure if those were the words that the god in front of him wanted to hear.

The simple statement seemed to placate the god, who stood up, clearly relieved. "Thank you," he told Michel. Baron Samedi used his cane to slowly return to a standing position, then started to walk out of the room. He only took a few steps, though, before stopping and turning his attention back toward the Guardians. "I wish I could do more to provide reparation for what has been done to your friend, but Itzamna has already blessed you with so much..." An idea seemed to form in the baron's mind as his cane swayed back and forth gently with his shifting weight. Finally coming to a decision, Baron Samedi tossed a bag of coins to Castle. "I suppose this will have to suffice," he sighed.

"What are these?" asked Castle.

"A token of my guilt," Samedi replied. "I believe your expression is that...I now owe you one. The coins in that bag symbolize a covenant between my power and your protection. If you give one of these coins to someone, it will be a sign to me that they fall under your protection. I will not dig their grave without your approval."

Esposito's eyes widened as he realized the power that Castle now held in his hands. "So what you're saying is that not only are *we* immortal, but now we can make other people immortal now, too?"

Baron Samedi nodded. "Although, I would request that you limit yourselves to the number of coins that are in that bag. Death is a necessary part of the natural order, and to completely eliminate it would be as bad an abomination as what what done to your friend. So if you were to try to...replicate the coins in any way, it would negate this covenant between us."

"Understood," agreed Castle.

Baron Samedi vanished before Castle had time to finish his statement of consent. Beckett studied her fiancé carefully, curious as to why the link between them was so quiet. "Those coins are one hell of a responsibility," she commented.

Castle never took his eyes off the bag he held in his hands. "Yeah."

"Any idea who you might want to give those to?"

Castle smiled enigmatically. "Oh, I think I have an idea..."

#

Michel turned around in place, gawking at the immediate change in his surroundings. "Katya has told me tales of the power at the Guardians' disposal, but truly, I had *no* idea..."

Castle let the vampire take one good look around before commanding the older being's attention. "Michel, I allowed you to return with us because you claim to be a friend of Katya's. If she does not recognize you or you and your friend here make any moves to attack *any* being in this complex, you will be ash before you get a chance to change your mind. Is that clear?"

Michel nodded respectfully. "Yes, honored ones. Lead the way." The five beings took but two steps down the hallway before Michel stopped his fellow vampire. "And Christopher, everything that the Sìfāng said goes double for you, because, so help me, if you do anything to embarass me *I* will dust you myself before the Guardians get the chance. Am I making myself clear?"

"Yes, my sire," Christopher agreed quietly.

The group stopped at the door to Lanie's lab, not wanting to disturb the silence in the room in front of them. Michelle, though, heard the commotion behind her and broke the tension. "You guys can come in. From what Lanie told me, they should be waking up any minute..."

Castle chuckled as he listened to Michelle's voice trail off in a yawn. "Where is Lanie?"

"I sent her off to get some sleep," Michelle replied. It was then that she noticed the blood stains traveling down the sides of the Guardians' bodies. "My god...are you guys okay? Do I need to go get her?"

Esposito waved off the concern. "They're just...bug bites. Let her sleep. How they doin'?"

Michelle raised a wary eyebrow. "'Bug bites', huh?...well anyway, when Lanie told me that they were just resting I figured I could watch them as well as she could. She looked like she hadn't slept in *days*. But I'm glad you guys are back, Rick. Did you get the guy?" She then tilted her head in the direction of the two vampires. "Or are *they* the 'guy'?"

"No, no...the blood dealer's dead," Castle replied. "Michel and Christopher *claim* to be friends of Katya's."

Both of Michelle's eyebrows shot up in surprise. "So they're...vampires, too, like Katya?" She shook her head in amazement as Castle nodded. "Director Fallon mentioned something about your blood being instantly fatal to vampires..."

"Why?" asked Beckett, curious as to the reason that the subject had come up in their absence.

"That's how Lanie treated Katya. She used Agent Ryan's blood to burn the tainted blood out of Katya's system and Director Fallon provided a full transfusion...at least, I *think* that's how she did it..." Michelle shook her head again as her memories of the past few hours threatened to overwhelm her. "I'm mostly just trying to keep up here, to be honest..."

"You're doing pretty well for someone who got thrown into the deep end of the pool, I think..."

The weak voice coming from the one of the beds got everyone's attention. "Hey bro," Esposito greeted his partner, "welcome back to the land of the living..."

"Thanks," Ryan replied. "Are they awake yet?"

Esposito shook his head. "Nah, you're the first one up. Everything ok?"

Ryan nodded. "The spirit that was coming after Katya is gone. She'll be just fine."

"Gone?" asked Esposito. "As in kicked out, or 'gone', gone?" The dark shadow that passed across his partner's face told the ex-soldier everything he needed to know. "Jesus..."

Ryan was unapologetic. "I did what I had to do."

Esposito squeezed his partner's shoulder to reassure him. "I know you did, bro. I know you did." His eyes, though, turned toward Castle's in a moment of unspoken communication.

Castle turned to Michelle. "I think we need Lanie now. Could you get her?" he asked Michelle. She left the room without a word.

"So..." Esposito began, hesitating when he realized he was unsure of how to ask his partner for the information he was looking for. "Exactly...*how* did you..."

Ryan caught on to his partner's awkwardly implied question. "I don't think spirit had any power of her own," he explained. "She just turned to dust when I..."

Esposito's sigh of relief kept Ryan from having to finish his sentence. "Thank *God*, bro! I was afraid you were gonna grow another head or something!" Ryan gently cuffed his partner on the back of his head, accepting the teasing in stride.

"You said the spirit had no power of *her* own?" asked Castle. When Ryan nodded, Castle turned to Beckett. "The shaman must have been channeling his power through his soulmate to get to Katya."

"Which is why he never broke his trance even after you sealed off the room," Beckett agreed.

Movement in the adjacent bed cut off any further discussion as Fallon and Katya work up at the same time. Katya's eyes immediately went to the one thing in the room that stuck out like a sore thumb. "Michel! Old friend, how...?"

"After your visit, I couldn't get your...afflictions...off of my mind," Michel explained, crossing the room to come to his friend's bedside. "I asked around to some of my own contacts, and discovered that someone had been selling you tainted blood. I was on my way to...take care of the problem when I ran into your Guardian friends. Apparently, they had come to the same conclusion that I had. Then they were kind enough to bring me along so that I could check on you. How are you feeling, mon petite chatte?"

"Better," Katya replied with a yawn. "Best I have felt in weeks, actually," she added, surprising herself with the admission. It was only then that she felt the presence of a foreign tube sticking out of her arm. She frowned in confusion as she traced the path of the tube to the wrist of her nearby beloved. "Mark? Moy vozlyublennyy, what have you done?"

Lanie slipped between the couple, quietly pulling out the tube and healing the punctures as Fallon explained, "We used Guardian blood to burn the tainted blood out of your system. But since that would have left you with *no* blood in your system, and you needed a fresh supply..."

Katya caressed Fallon's cheek with her free hand. "You volunteered."

"More like I was the only option available at the time," Fallon shrugged...

Until Katya cut him off with a gentle kiss. "Thank you," she whispered as their lips separated.

"I love you," he whispered back in response.

Katya turned to Lanie, her mind consumed with thoughts about the well-being of her fiancé. "How is he?"

"He's *fine*," Lanie reassured Katya before her worried thought could pick up a full head of steam. "He might be a little tired for a while until his blood count gets back up to normal, but I'd be surprised if even that lasts more than a day. Mostly both of you just need to *rest* and get your strength back. You've both been through a lot."

Katya laced her fingers through Fallon's, squeezing his hand as she held it in her own. "That we have." She turned back to her fiancé. "Mark, I am sorry about..."

Fallon silenced Katya by covering her mouth with his free hand. "*No* apologies needed, Kat. Partners, remember?"

Katya nodded. "For eternity."

The group seemed to take that as an unspoken cue to leave and give the lovers some privacy. Castle helped Ryan out of the bed, walking with him as they brought up the rear. "Ryan, when we were at the butcher's shop, something...came into my possession. I have a feeling you're going to be able to do a lot more with it than I can."

Ryan frowned, confused. "What is it?" The small metal object that Castle held out to him did nothing to lessen his confusion. "An old coin? What kind of good am I going to be able to do with an old coin, Castle?"

* * *

**As usual, epilogues always take me longer than I think they're going to. Besides, I hate to leave a story on Chapter 13. One more to go!**

**Comments welcome!**


	14. Chapter 14

Ryan opened the door to his apartment and quietly closed it with a soft click. He was so focused on being quiet that it startled him when he found his wife in the living room, drinking a cup of herbal tea. He opened his mouth to speak, then closed it when Jenny raised her hand to stop him so that she could speak first. "You hear that?"

"What?" asked Ryan.

"*Exactly*," Jenny replied with a smile. "I don't hear *anything*. For the first time in a month. No baby crying, no city noise...nobody's thoughts but my own. Nothing."

"Really?" asked Ryan, surprised and delighted by the relaxed look on his wife's face. "That's great!" He quickly frowned though, as a potential reason for the peace and quiet came to him. "Is the baby still okay?"

Jenny dismissed her husband's concerns. "My guess is that the baby's finally learned how to sleep. At this point I'll take any small favors I can get..."

"But you'll still check in with Lanie tomorrow, right?" Ryan warned, unwilling to rest the matter on his wife's assumptions.

Jenny smiled, her heart warming at the thought of her husband worrying about them. "Okay, I'll call her. I think you're overreacting. But I'll call her." She patted the spot next to her on the sofa to encourage Ryan to join her. "Now how was your day?"

Trying to keep a cap on his excitement, Ryan forced himself to act casually as he took a seat on the couch. "We finally figured out what's been going on with Katya."

"Really?" Jenny asked before taking a sip of her tea. "What was it?"

"Turns out her blood supplier was selling her tainted blood. Trying to 'prepare' her body so that he could resurrect his dead soulmate."

Jenny tried to hide her surprise behind another sip of tea. "Didn't he realize that someone was already *using* her body?"

Ryan nodded. "He assumed that because Katya's a vampire, she doesn't have a soul."

Jenny caught on quickly. "And because she *does* have a soul..."

"It was something of a 'Showdown at the OK Corral' inside of Katya's head."

"But she's okay now? You got the guy?"

Ryan nodded again, fingering the coin in his pocket as he spoke...and deliberately pushed the darker thoughts out of his head. "Yeah, she's going to be fine."

Jenny sipped her tea as she stared out the window, her mind wandering as she contemplated Katya's earlier suffering. "Kev, can you promise me something?"

"What?"

"When I'm finally gone...whenever that ends up being...promise me that you won't try to do anything that stupid."

Ryan forced himself to hide his smile. "Stupid?"

"Yeah, like resurrect me or somthing..."

"I'd like to think it won't ever come to that."

Jenny rolled her eyes at her husband's clear denial of the obvious. "Which one of us is immortal here, Kevin?"

_Showtime_, thought Ryan, no longer trying to hide his smile. "Hopefully? Both of us."

Jenny blinked back her confusion and surprise at her husband's statement. "I don't follow."

"A regular wizard can't resurrect somebody. Castle can't do it - even Lanie can't do it. Only gods can do that...and even they can't kick a soul out of its owner's body. The blood dealer was attacking Katya in the name of a god called Baron Samedi."

"Baron Samedi?"

"He's kind of like a Vodun version of Hades; power mostly over who lives, who dies and when, that sort of thing...anyway, because one of his followers tried to pull this little stunt in his name, Baron Samedi felt like he had to make it up to us." Ryan pulled the coin out of his pocket, dangling it from the chain that was now strung through its center. "This coin is Baron Samedi's symbol."

Jenny fingered the coin carefully. "It's...not exactly pretty."

Ryan unlatched the clasp of the chain and fastened it around his wife's neck. "It doesn't have to be pretty to do its job."

"What's its job?" asked Jenny.

"To protect you when I can't," Ryan replied. "As long as you wear that necklace around your neck you can't die either."

Jenny's eyes widened. "So if I wear this necklace, then I can't die?" Ryan nodded. "I become just as immortal as you are?"

Ryan nodded again. "Will you promise me that you'll never take this off? *Ever*?"

Jenny fingered the coin as the impact of her husband's explanation started to sink in. "Well...I *might* ask Castle to put the coin in a better setting..." Ryan rolled his eyes at his wife's obvious teasing, but the smile never left his face. "But I promise, honey. I won't take it off."

Ryan sighed with relief before giving his wife a kiss to settle the matter. He broke the kiss with a gasp, though, when he recognized the thought that had been going through his mind...was not his own.

Jenny recognized the look on her husband's face. "Honey? What is it..."

"Shhh..." Ryan interrupted his wife, looking for quiet to focus. It took only a moment for the quiet voice in his head to call out again. _Daa...daa..._

"Did you hear that?" asked Ryan in a whisper.

"What?" Jenny countered in an equally whisper.

Ryan connected to his wife's mind, careful to ease the intensity of the connection so that there would be no feedback. He then attempted to speak to the new voice in his head. _Baby? Is that you?_

The voice in his head squealed with delight. _Daaa!_

Jenny gasped as tears started to well up in her eyes. "I heard that!" she exclaimed, still keeping her voice at a whisper. "Is that..."

Ryan nodded. "I think so, yeah."

"Could Alexis..."

Ryan shook his head. "Not until after she was born."

A giggle bubbled out of Jenny's heart as she shook her head in amazement. "So that was *our* baby?"

"Yeah," Ryan replied with a chuckle, his expression mirroring his wife's overflowing joy. "That was our baby..."

Jenny caressed her husband's cheek as she thought about everything that had happened to her that afternoon...and over that past year. "Hell of a life we've carved out for ourselves here, honey..."

"You regret it?"

Jenny finally let a single tear fall down her cheek, hoping that her answer would silence that question once and for all. "Not now. Not ever."

#

"Man, what a day!" Castle exclaimed as he got off the elevator. "I am *exhausted*..."

"Clearly," Beckett agreed, knowing that they probably would have teleported home if either of her wizard companions were anything other than dead on their feet. "Good thing I still carry my keys to the loft, just in case..."

Castle perked up immediately as his fiancée's voice trailed off, knowing that anything that caught the attention of Beckett's heightened senses, at this time of night, was *rarely* a good thing. "Beckett?" he asked in a voice just barely above a whisper. "What is it?"

Beckett stretched her hearing to scan the footprint of the loft, then relaxed with a weary, exhausted sigh. Her expression clearly showed that while there was no danger in whatever she was hearing, she found no comfort in it either. "I swear," Beckett declared, "that woman has the world's *worst* sense of timing."

Alexis knew that there was only one woman Beckett could possibly be talking about. "It's my mother, isn't it?"

Beckett nodded. "And unless I miss my guess, she's spent all day in the loft waiting to talk to you."

Castle groaned, and checked his cell phone. "15 messages. All of them from Meredith."

"You never called her back?" asked Alexis.

Castle rolled his eyes before staring down his daughter, annoyed that she thought to even ask the question. "We were a *little* busy today..."

Alexis threw her hands up in surrender, conceding to her father's point. "She's going to be *mad*, that's all I'm saying..."

"So how do you guys want to handle this?" asked Beckett.

Castle turned to his grown-up daughter. "Your mom. Your call."

Alexis' jaw dropped open in disbelief, amazed that her father would just drop responsibility for the situation into her lap. "You're *serious*?"

"I'm sorry, honey. She's my ex, but she's *your* mother. You're going to have to deal with her a lot more than I will. You're an adult now. However you want to handle this, I'll back you up a hundred percent."

Alexis found her father's support to be far from comforting. "Gee, thanks, *dad*," she said sarcastically. She took a moment to collect her thoughts...some of which got mumbled under her very aggravated breath. "Doesn't check his messages all day long and then dumps her into *my* lap. Nice little grownup move *there*, Dad..." Finally, though, Alexis seemed to come to a decision. "Open the door."

Beckett proceeded as she had been instructed, allowing Alexis to take the lead into the loft. Once she had closed the door behind them, though, Beckett found herself face to face with the full wrath of Meredith's icy fury. "Okay, you...just who the hell are you exactly, Kate Beckett?"

It took a second for Beckett to register that Meredith was talking to *her*. "Excuse me?"

"You heard me. I saw you with your so-called 'friends' at the restaurant the other night, Kate. I saw what your 'friend' did to that poor man. And if that's the kind of woman that you're exposing my daughter to..."

It took less than a second for Alexis to realize that her mother was talking about Katya's bachelorette party. It only took slightly longer for her to realize exactly what that *meant*. "Why were you at the restaurant, mom? Were you *following* me?!"

Meredith backtracked quickly when she noticed that her daughter was now standing between her and her intended victim. "I-I-I...When you told me that your dad had gotten engaged, Lex, I realized that I didn't know Kate all that well, and...and I wanted to see what kind of a relationship you two had, see if I could trust her with you..."

"Stop," Alexis cut off her mother's ramblings, knowing that the woman was just fishing for something she thought her daughter would buy. "Just...stop. First of all, 'mother'. Those weren't just Kate's friends at the restaurant. They were *my* friends. In fact, they were *my* friends long before most of them had even *met* Kate."

"I..."

Alexis cut her mother off again. "Second, I am *perfectly* capable of taking care of myself, 'mother'. More so than you could ever *possibly* imagine."

"But..."

Alexis cut her mother off by covering Meredith's mouth with her hand. "And third, do *not* try to hand me some bull about wanting to make sure that Kate is 'good enough' to hang out with me. Ever since you came to 'take care' of me when I had mono, you've only had one goal in mind every time we've talked: to break up Kate and my dad so you could have him all to yourself again. And I'm not going to stand for it anymore. I'm sure as *hell* not going to be the excuse for your actions."

"Alexis, I..."

Alexis uncovered her mother's mouth only long enough to walk back to the loft's front door and open it. "Get out."

Meredith stared at her daughter in open-mouthed shock. "Excuse me?"

"Get. Out. You are not welcome here, you are not welcome at my school, you are not welcome in New York City. Not until you can accept that my dad's life is doing just fine *without you in it*. Mom, I love you, but you are not going to be the center of my life or the center of my dad's life *ever* again. And I don't want to see you around us until you are fully willing to accept that." Too astonished and embarrased to speak, Meredith simply picked up her coat from where she tossed it on the couch and left without another word.

Castle studied his daughter's expression, wishing he had Ryan's gift so that he could tell what his daughter was thinking and feeling. "Alexis?" he asked gently, not wanting to aggravate her further. "Honey, are you okay?"

Alexis let out a long, slow, deep breath, trying to push out the tension in her body through her lungs. "I'll be fine, dad," she sighed, giving Castle a smile that didn't quite reach her eyes. "To be honest, I probably should have done that months ago. I hate that it had to come to that, but it's what she needed to hear."

"I had to have a conversation like that with my dad, once," Beckett chimed in. "He was drinking himself to death. I told him he had to check himself into rehab or get out of my life."

"So he must have checked himself into rehab, then?" asked Alexis.

"Not for another year," Beckett replied sadly. "You can't help an addict until they're ready to help themselves. Honestly, that year was the hardest year of my life. But he needed to hear what I told him. Just like your mom needed to hear what you told her tonight."

Alexis smiled slightly, taking some comfort in Beckett's words of encouragement. "Thanks, Kate." The young wizard yawned deeply before another word could come out of her mouth. "I *really* need to go to bed," she admitted. "Good night, you two."

"Good night, honey," Castle called back to his daughter as she climbed the staircase. He then turned his attention to his fiancée without turning his gaze. "That was a really brave thing she did tonight."

Beckett nodded her head in agreement as she watched Alexis disappear into her room. "It was even more brave after the incredibly stupid move *you* made."

Castle now gave Beckett his full attention. "Excuse me?"

"You heard me," insisted Beckett. "You let Alexis do your dirty work for you! Real 'adult' move there, Castle..."

Castle had to force his open mouth to close as he watched Beckett walk past him into the bedrom. "But...but Kate," he protested weakly, "I didn't say anything to her about exactly *how* she should have handled things with her mother..."

#

"That was a hell of a thing you did back there, bro. I don't think I could have done it."

Ryan clinked beer bottles with his partner, then turned to watch the last rays of sunlight disappear over New Jersey. "Just...embracing my inner Warrior Priest, I guess," he shrugged.

"Still...I definitely don't think I'd ever be able to get up the nerve to marry off my ex to her new boyfriend."

The blush that crept up in Ryan cheeks was starting to match the red of the sky even as he smiled. "Yeah, well...it helps when you know you're not going to be on the market again...ever."

Esposito slowly matched his partner's smile as his last comments started to sink in. "Bro...?"

"Castle gave me his coin to give to Jenny. Said he couldn't think of anyone he'd want to give it to more."

Esposito, in turn, fished his own coin out of his pocket. "Guess he beat me to it, then."

Ryan stared at the coin in his partner's hand as he thought about the offer his partner had been hoping to make. He the enveloped the man in a giant bear hug. "Still...I appreciate the offer. It means more than you'll ever know." Esposito opened his mouth to speak...but was interrupted by a group of Network members who came up to compliment Ryan on the beauty of the ceremony.

The bride and groom were not among the group, however. They were far more preoccupied by a couple of other pieces of jewelry. "I can't believe it," Katya commented in amazement, looking down at the ring on her left hand for to have been the tenth time since the since the ceremony. "We *finally* got married..."

Fallon looked at their intertwined left hands, taking a second to appreciate the set of matching rings for himself. "Yeah..." he exclaimed, matching his wife's amazement. "We made it..." The moment was broken by a smattering of applause around the outdoor space as the decorative lights on the roof were all lit at once - a signal that the party was going to go late into the night. Fallon took that opportunity to appreciate the beauty of his wife's face as her pale skin reflected the new light around her. "So...no more running away from the idea of marriage, huh?"

Katya broke into a fang-bearing grin. "Darling," she teased, "if you *ever* tried to run, I can promise you this: I would catch you every time."

Fallon glowed with a smile that matched his bride's. "I'm counting on it," he cooed, before leaning in to consume her smile in another passionate kiss.

The couple broke the kiss when the tinkling of clinking glasses erupted around them. "What is that *racket*?" asked Katya.

Fallon could only shrug. "I don't know. Usually that sound is made at a wedding to *encourage* the bride and groom to kiss..."

"Well, I have no issues with *that*..." Katya purred, leaning in to gently nibble on Fallon's ear as she talked over the din.

Fallon pulled his bride away from his ear when he realized that the clinking of glasses had had an instigator. And that the instigator in question was now trying to silence the glasses so that he could speak. "All right, everyone!" Castle yelled out over the noise. He then waitied until he had the attention of everyone on the roof before speaking.

"As 'Director' Fallon's best man, it is the typical tradition at weddings for me to start the festivities by offering a toast to the bride and groom. Now, while the couple we are celebrating with tonight is *far* from traditional..." Light laughter could be heard around the room as everyone agreed with Castle's comments. "While this couple is far from traditional, I see no reason why this particular tradition shouldn't continue." Castle then made sure his attention was focused completely on the couple as he continued. "Mark, Ekaterina...for reasons that I couldn't possibly begin to fathom, you each made the decision to devote your lives to helping us protect this city. And while there are *centuries* of differences between the two of you, that *one* decision brought you to each other and brought all of us to where we are today. And I, for one, will be *eternally* grateful."

As a chorus of "here, here"s rippled through the rooftop space, Castle raised his glass of champagne; a gesture which everyone else immediately imitated. "To Mark and Katya," he toasted the couple.

"May your futures, *forever*, be blessed."

#

**Well, folks, that's it! A humble and grateful thank you for those of you who have stuck with this wonderful universe of the Castle Guardians to the bitter end. While I can't say for certain that this will be my last foray into fan fiction, I can say with absolute certainty that this will be my last fan fiction for *quite* a while as I now *fully* turn my attentions to writing ****_Guardians of Shangri La_****, which will be the totally original story of Katya and her time with the Castle Guardians' temple predecessors. Those of you who want to follow that story should go to my author page and sign up for the author alerts on my Fiction Press page. **

**As always, I look forward to reading your comments! Thank you, again, for taking the time to let me tell you these crazy stories. I hope that you have enjoyed reading them as much as I have enjoyed writing them.**

**And may your futures, forever, be blessed!**


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